>MB 


THE 

THREE  HOUR 

3ERM0N 

PAUL  KANAMORT 


tihvavy  of  €Ke  trheolo^ical  ^tminavy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

DelavsJi  L,  Pierson 

BV  3797  .K3  1920 
Kanamori,  Paul 
The  three  hour  sermon  on 
God,  sin  and  salvation 


THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 


^' 


THE  THREE  HOUR 
SERMON 

ON 


God^  Sin  and  Salvation 


BY 

PAUL' KAN AMORI 

JAPANESE  EVANGELIST 


With  Foreword  By 

ROBERT  E.  SPEER 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming    H.    Revell    Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


G)p>Tight,  1920.  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinbtirgh:    75    Princes    Street 


FOREWORD 

MR.  KANAMORI  preaches  a  gospel 
which  he  knows  and  lives.  His  pres- 
ent work  in  Japan  is  unique  in  its 
character  and  its  influence.  A  remarkable 
personal  experience  lies  behind  it,  and  no  one 
can  doubt  that  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  in  it. 

His  Christian  faith  began  in  Kumamoto  in 
the  island  of  Kyushu  nearly  fifty  years  ago. 
Captain  Janes,  an  American  army  officer,  at 
the  request  of  the  ex-daimyo  of  Higo  had  pro- 
vided a  school  in  his  capital  of  Kumamoto. 
By  his  words  and  by  the  example  of  his  loving 
conduct  Captain  Janes  from  the  first  "  enlisted 
the  hearts  of  the  students  for  Christianity.*' 
In  his  History  of  Protestant  Missions  in  Japan, 
Ritter  gives  a  brief  account  of  the  founding 
of  the  Kumamoto  Band,  drawn  largely  from 
what  Mr.  Kanamori,  who  was  one  of  its  mem- 
bers, reported: 

"  Ever}'  Saturday  evening  he  read  the  Bible 
with  his  pupils.  At  first  they  only  took  part 
in  order  to  learn  English  and  in  order  to  criti- 


6  FOREWORD 

cize  *  the  Christian  teaching ;  but  finally  it  con- 
quered us/  *  He  used  to  ask  us  to  relate  to  the 
lower  classes  of  the  people  in  Japanese  what  we 
had  learned  out  of  the  English  Bible/  At  last 
thirty  of  them  entered  into  a  sacred  covenant, 
in  which  they  dedicated  themselves  solemnly  to 
Christ  as  His  servants,  and  promised  to  re- 
nounce the  worship  of  idols.  In  connection 
with  the  hostility  against  all  innovations, 
against  foreigners  and  Christians,  which  had 
raged  since  1873  through  Kyushu,  this  small 
band  had  to  undergo  persecution  and  severe 
trials,  now  through  the  mockery  and  hatred  of 
their  fellow-students,  who  were  otherwise 
minded,  and  now  through  the  anger  of  their 
troubled  parents.  Some  of  them  indeed  were 
compelled  to  leave  Kumamoto,  and  Kanamori, 
after  his  return  home,  paid  for  his  steadfast- 
ness by  being  confined  to  his  house  for  several 
weeks. 

"About  twenty  of  this  band  broke  their 
vow,  but  ten  of  these  renewed  it  again  and 
showed,  together  with  the  ten  who  remained 
faithful,  and  ten  others  who  afterwards  joined 
the  band,  that  a  Japanese  knows  how  to  suffer 
for  what  he  has  learned  to  be  true." 

There  is  a  fuller  account  of  the  Kumamoto 
Band  in  Dr.  M,  L.  Gordon's  An  'American 


FOREWORD  7 

Missionary  in  Japan.  I  heard  one  of  its  mem- 
bers at  Northfield  thirty  years  ago  tell  the  story 
of  the  band  and  of  the  night  on  the  hilltop 
when  they  took  their  pledge  to  their  new  faith 
and  signed  it  in  their  blood : 

*'  We  have  lately  studied  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, and  are  greatly  impressed  with  its  truth. 
We  therefore  want  to  spread  it  through  our 
country,  and  in  this  endeavour  we  will  regard 
our  lives  but  dust  and  ashes.  By  writing  our 
several  names  we  do  hereby  solemnly  swear  to 
the  sincerity  of  our  intentions.    Amen." 

These  men  were  the  main  founders  of  the 
Kumiai  or  Congregational  Churches  in  Japan 
and  some  of  them,  Ebina,  Miyagawa,  Harada, 
and  Kanamori,  are  today,  after  a  lapse  of  half 
a  century,  among  the  outstanding  leaders  of 
Japanese  Christianity.  From  Captain  Janes's 
School  they  went  to  the  Doshisha  as  the  first 
theological  students  and  thence  passed  out  into 
the  pastorates  of  the  strongest  Kumiai  Congre- 
gations. Mr.  Kanamori  became  minister  of 
one  of  the  leading  churches  in  Tokyo. 

In  the  early  nineties,  however,  a  tide  of 
reaction  and  rationalism  set  in  in  Japan  and 
many  of  the  Kumamoto  Band  were  carried 
away,  Mr.  Kanamori  was  then  a  professor 
of  theology.  One  of  the  missionaries  in  Japan 
wrote  two  years  ago  of  what  befell  him: 


8  FOREWORD 

"  He  began  to  read  upon  the  most  recent 
German  theology,  with  the  result  that  he  was 
completely  swept  off  his  feet  by  the  rational- 
istic New  Theology,  Higher  Criticism,  etc. 
Not  long  after  that  he  published  his  new  views 
under  the  title  The  Present  and  Future  of 
Christianity  in  Japan,  and  retired  from  the 
ministry.  The  rationalistic  German  mission  at 
that  time  asked  him  to  come  over  and  work 
with  them,  but  he  could  not  bear  to  devote 
himself  to  breaking  down  what  his  former  col- 
leagues were  trying  to  build  up,  and  preferred 
to  give  himself  to  lecturing  on  thrift,  which  he 
did  for  many  years  with  conspicuous  success. 

"  He  remained  in  this  state  of  spiritual  dark- 
ness for  twenty  years,  until  the  death  of  his 
wife  brought  him  and  his  children  into  great 
trouble,  but  after  passing  through  these  deep 
waters  he  came  out  again  with  a  clear  and  firm 
belief  in  the  old-fashioned  gospel.  He  told  me 
that  he  had  arranged  his  affairs  so  as  to  pro- 
vide for  his  family,  and  now  had  determined 
to  devote  the  remaining  years  of  his  life  to 
preaching  the  simple  gospel  throughout  the 
country,  as  he  had  once  preached  the  principles 
of  economy. 

"  Shortly  before  he  came  to  speak  for  us 
he  had  completed  a  book  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty  pages,  in  which  the  whole  Gospel  is 


FOREWORD  9 

presented  in  the  simplest  possible  language. 
Any  Japanese  who  can  read  at  all  can  under- 
stand this  book.  I  read  it  through  and  was 
astonished  that  Japanese  could  be  made  so 
simple  and  at  the  same  time  so  clear  and  force- 
ful. I  think  it  must  be  the  simplest  Japanese 
that  ever  was  printed.  No  one  but  a  master 
could  have  written  so  simply.  It  is  said  that 
when  he  had  finished  the  first  draft  he  read  it 
all  to  a  primary  school  boy  and  that  he  altered 
all  the  passages  which  the  boy  failed  to  grasp. 
He  did  not  tell  me  this  him.self,  but  it  may  well 
be  true. 

"  The  contents  of  it  are  to  me  more  surpris- 
ing than  the  style.  The  book  takes  its  stand  on 
the  Holy  Scriptures  in  both  Old  and  New 
Testaments  with  the  same  confident  appeal 
that  a  man  might  make  who  never  had  heard 
of  any  *  new  thought.'  No  Dutch  dominie 
could  state  the  central  doctrines  of  our  re- 
ligion in  a  more  absolutely  orthodox,  scrip- 
tural, and  evangelical  manner  than  they  are 
given  in  this  little  book.  In  addition  to  that, 
it  is  interesting,  and  thoroughly  adapted  to  the 
common  people  in  Japan.  The  man  who  wrote 
it  evidently  knows  his  countrymen.*' 

Mr.  Kanamori  has  set  out  now  on  a  unique 
evangelistic  mission  with  a  method  all  his  own. 


lo  FOREWORD 

He  has  condensed  the  presentation  of  the 
essentials  of  the  Christian  faith  into  one  three- 
hour  sermon.  The  first  hour  is  devoted  to  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  God,  the  second  to  sin, 
and  the  third  to  salvation.  This  sermon  he 
preaches  every  night  to  a  different  congrega- 
tion. Those  who  hear  it  once  are  requested 
not  to  return,  but  to  send  their  friends.  This 
sermon  Mr.  Kanamori  has  preached  more  than 
800  times  to  over  300,000  people,  on  the 
Pacific  Coast,  in  Japan,  and  in  Hawaii.  It  is 
his  practice  to  see  no  one  in  the  afternoons, 
but  after  luncheon  to  give  himself  to  prayer 
and  fasting  in  preparation  for  the  evening, 
and  after  the  sermon  to  call  for  immedi- 
ate decisions  of  acceptance  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Of  the  300,000  who  have  heard, 
approximately  50,000  have  responded  to  his 
appeal. 

Of  Mr.  Kanamori^s  manner  of  preaching, 
Dr.  S.  H.  Wainright  wrote  an  interesting  ac- 
count in  the  Japan  Advertiser  of  February  11, 
1919,  describing  the  evangelistic  meetings 
which  Mr.  Kanamori  was  conducting  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Fujimicho  Presbyterian 
Church  in  Tokyo,  whose  pastor,  the 
Rev.  M.  Uemura,  is  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  remarkable  Christian  leaders  in 
Asia : 


FOREWORD  II 

"  Though  he  has  reached  the  age  of  sixty- 
three,"  wrote  Dr.  Wainright,  "  Mr.  Kanamori 
is  most  strenuous  in  his  activity.  He  is  ex- 
tremely plain  and  unconventional  in  manner 
and  dress.  He  does  not  wear  the  frock  coat  so 
indispensable  to  the  public  speaker  in  Japan, 
nor  has  he  that  stiffness  of  manner  so  char- 
acteristic of  those  who  affect  Confucian  pro- 
prieties. He  held  up  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures 
before  the  audience  as  a  *  basis '  of  all  he  had 
to  say  and  as  a  '  book  not  written  in  the  high 
style  of  the  Confucian  Classics  but  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people.*  There  is  little  action  in 
the  ordinary  discourse  of  a  Japanese  preacher, 
which  is  to  say  that  there  is  little  of  the  force 
and  vividness  of  the  dramatic  in  his  speech.  So 
slight  is  the  dependence  upon  movements  of 
the  body  to  aid  in  expression  that  gesticula- 
tion with  the  hands  even  is  used  with  great 
restraint.  But  the  ardour  of  Mr.  Kanamori  is 
too  whole-souled  for  him  to  be  held  within 
such  limits;  yet  there  was  a  self-possession  in 
his  manner  truly  characteristic  of  the  Japa- 
nese. Any  one  witnessing  his  quiet  mastery  of 
the  audience  Sunday  evening  would  be  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  the  use  of  violent  propa- 
ganda is  not  inherent  in  the  religious  senti- 
ment. It  would  have  been  equally  as  clear 
that  reasoning  as  well  as  dogmatic  affirmation 


12  FOREWORD 

can  have  weight  with  the  multitudes.  The 
speaker  held  to  certain  broad  truths  which  he 
made  real  to  the  imagination  by  means  of 
concrete  illustrations,  and  at  times  he  rose  to 
the  height  of  passion  as  when  speaking  of 
national  evils.  But  it  was  a  reasoned  discourse 
from  beginning  to  end.  Ideas  played  a  more 
prominent  part  than  the  emotional  element;  a 
fact  to  be  explained  not  only  by  the  preponder- 
ance of  non-Christians  in  the  audience,  but  also 
by  the  circumstances  that  ideas  figure  more 
prominently  in  the  public  speech  in  the  east 
than  in  the  west,  where  instruction  rather  than 
oratory  has  been  the  form  of  discourse.  Yet 
at  times  the  emotions  of  his  audience  were 
raised  to  a  heightened  degree  of  intensity,  as 
for  example  when  he  gave  an  account  of  the 
death  of  Christ  by  crucifixion,  suffering  a  vi- 
carious death.  The  description  was  unsur- 
passed in  the  vivid  and  pathetic  reality  of  the 
picture  and  of  its  significance.  The  suggestive 
power  of  the  speaker^s  words  was  made  more 
effective  by  the  intensity  of  his  own  conviction. 
"  My  feeling  was  that  Christianity  in  Japan 
had  reached  a  new  phase  in  the  preaching  of 
Mr.  Kanamori.  The  story  of  the  cross,  the 
singular  fascination  of  which  has  been  so  ir- 
resistible as  told  in  the  language  of  many  races 
and  nations,  has  found  living  expression,  with 


FOREWORD  13 

moral  power,  in  the  colloquial  speech  of  the 
Japanese  people.  Many  of  Mr.  Kanamori's 
illustrations,  as  for  example  the  covenant  of 
the  47  Ronin  sealed  injblood,  were  drawn  from 
the  native  environment.  That  the  platform 
Sunday  evening  succeeded  in  overcoming  the 
gulf  between  the  Christian  message  and  the 
popular  soul  was  rendered  evident  by  the  fact 
that  673  persons  in  the  audience  decided  to 
enter  upon  the  Christian  life." 

Many  who  have  heard  of  Mr.  Kanamori's 
sermon  but  who  do  not  understand  Japanese 
have  been  anxious  to  hear  or  read  it  in  Eng- 
lish. They  have  wanted  to  know  how  an  able 
Japanese  with  such  an  experience  as  Mr.  Kana- 
mori's would  put  the  Christian  message.  Mis- 
sionaries in  other  lands  have  expressed  a  desire 
to  see  it  as  an  exhibit  in  Christian  apologetics, 
in  co-operative  religion  and  in  evangelistic 
method.  Mr.  Kanamori,  who  knows  English 
well,  has  himself  written  out  the  sermon  in 
English  and  it  is  now  made  available  to  all. 
I  trust  that  it  may  have  a  wide  circulation. 
All  proceeds  from  its  sale  received  by  Mr. 
Kanamori  will  serve  to  enable  him  to  carry 
on  more  widely  his  present  most  fruitful  work. 
It  is  his  ambition,  he  says,  to  preach  orally  to 
3,000,000  of   his   countrymen  and   to   reach 


14  FOREWORD 

17,000,000  more  by  printed  copies  of  his  ser- 
mon. Thus  single-handed  he  would  offer  the 
Gospel  to  one-third  of  the  people  of  Japan. 
He  holds  that  this  is  a  day  of  unlimited  oppor- 
tunity and  that  there  is  no  reason  whatsoever 
why  Japan  cannot  be  evangelized  in  this  gen- 
eration. 

Robert  E.  Speer. 


CONTENTS 

Preliminary  Introduction  ...  19 

Part  I  Concerning  God       ...  33 

Part  II  Concerning  Sin      .       ,       ,  (y^j 

Part  III  Concerning  Salvation       .  107 


PRELIMINARY  INTRODUCTION 


THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

ON 

GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION 

PRELIMINARY  INTRODUCTION 

THIS    is    a    theatre.      It    is    therefore 
usually  a  place  of  amusement.    But  to- 
night we  have  changed  it  into  a  Chris- 
tion   church  in  order  that  we  may  hold  a 
religious  service  in  place  of  a  dramatic  per- 
formance. 

It  is  a  custom  among  us  Christians,  as  you 
doubtless  know,  to  offer  prayer  to  our  God  at 
the  beginning  of  such  a  service.  God  is  every- 
where. He  is  with  us  here  this  evening.  And 
now  as  I  speak  to  Him  in  prayer,  invoking  His 
blessing  upon  this  meeting,  will  you  kindly 
keep  perfectly  quiet  and  give  me  your  help 
either  by  silently  offering  your  own  prayer 
with  mine  or  at  least  by  keeping  yourselves  in 
a  prayerful  mood? 
Let  us  pray, 

19 


20      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

PRAYER 

Almighty  God,  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth, 
we  thank  Thee  for  this  great  gathering  of  the 
people  tonight  to  hear  from  the  lips  of  Thine 
unworthy  servant  the  wondrous  gospel  of  Thy 
Son  Jesus  Christ.  We  beseech  Thee,  our 
Heavenly  Father,  that  Thou  wilt  give  Thy 
servant  wisdom  and  power  from  above  that 
he  may  be  able  truthfully  and  impressively  to 
present  the  gospel  of  Christ  in  its  purity  and 
simplicity.  Help  him  to  be  bold  and  fearless 
in  proclaiming  Thy  truths  to  those  who  need 
them. 

We  pray  Thee,  our  Father,  that  Thou  wUt 
pour  out  Thy  Holy  Spirit  upon  this  great  con- 
gregation. And,  now,  open  Thou  their  spir^ 
itual  ears  and  let  them  hear  not  the  voice  of 
man  but  the  voice  of  God.  Open  their  spiritual 
eyes  and  let  them  see  not  merely  the  things 
n^hich  are  visible  to  the  natural  eye  but  thes 
things  also  which  are  invisible.  May  their 
hearts  be  opened  and  may  they  receive  the  light 
from  heaven  and  being  enlightened  by  it,  may 
they  be  able  to  find  out  for  themselves  that  they 
are  great  /sinners  in  the  sight  of  God.  And 
thus  being  convicted  of  sin  may  they  be  drawn 
to  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ  the  blessed  Saviour 
of  the  world.     Oh  Father,  let  these  people 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         21 

know  that  there  is  none  other  God  beside  Thee, 
Thou  art  the  only  true  and  living  God  of  the 
universe.  Show  thyself  to  them  here  and  now, 
and  let  them  see  Thy  glory  and  be  saved.  We 
ask  this  in  the  precious  name  of  Thy  only  Son 
Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord.    Amen. 

THE  A  B  C  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

My  friends,  the  subject  of  my  discourse  to- 
night is,  What  is  Christianity,  or  what  is  the 
true  nature  of  the  religion  of  Jesus? 

In  this  congregation  I  beHeve  there  are  many 
Christians,  and  many  others  who  have  known 
for  some  time  more  or  less  about  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  But  I  feel  sure  that  there  are 
also  very  many  in  this  audience  who  have  not 
yet  become  acquainted  with  the  teachings  of 
this  great  religion  and  who  tonight  for  the 
first  time  in  their  lives  will  hear  a  Christian 
sermon.  And  be  it  understood  from  the  start 
that  my  talk  this  evening  is  for  this  last-named 
class  of  hearers  only.  Because  tonight  I  pro- 
pose to  speak  about  the  fundamental  truths  of 
Christianity,  the  ABC  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. 

Therefore  to  many  present  my  talk  may  con- 
tain nothing  that  is  really  new,  and  to  such  I 
fear  it  may  prove  quite  uninteresting.  Still  I 
believe  that  the  whole  of  Christianity  is  con- 


22      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

tained  in  these  fundamental  truths  just  as  an 
oak  tree  is  contained  in  an  acorn.  Therefore, 
if  you  understand  these  fundamentals  thor- 
oughly you  can  grasp  all  the  teachings  of  the 
Christian  religion.  So  I  feel  that  it  is  very 
important  for  those  who  wish  to  know  what 
Christianity  is  to  have  first  of  all  a  clear  con- 
ception of  these  primal  truths.  I  hope  you  all 
will  be  kind  enough  to  listen  patiently  to  my 
talk  on  these  first  principles  of  Christianity. 

WHY   so   FEW    CHRISTIANS  IN   JAPAN 

You  all  know  that  in  this  country  of  ours 
the  Christian  religion  has  secured  as  yet  but  a 
very  small  number  of  followers  compared  with 
other  religions.  There  are  only  a  little  over 
one  hundred  thousand  Christians  of  all  the 
various  Protestant  denominations.  That  is 
indeed  a  very  small  proportion  of  our  people. 

The  whole  population  of  Japan  proper  at 
present  is  about  sixty  millions.  Therefore  the 
^^'^'/^proportion  of  Protestant  Christians  to  the  en- 
tire population  is  but  one  in  six  hundred.  And 
I  think  the  first  and  most  important  reason 
why  there  are  so  few  Christians  in  Japan  is 
that  the  larger  part  of  our  people  have  not  yet 
had  an  opportunity  of  having  the  gospel  of 
Christ  presented  to  them.  They  have  never 
heard  Christian  sermons  nor  read  Christian 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        23 

books.  They  do  not  know  what  the  Christian 
religion  is.  They  are  ignorant  of  the  teach- 
ings of  Christ.  People  can  not  believe  in  a 
religion  about  which  they  know  nothing. 
Without  a  knowledge  of  the  true  nature  of 
the  religion  of  Christ  how  can  they  believe? 
Unless  some  one  goes  to  them  and  preaches 
the  gospel  to  them  how  can  they  know  it? 
So  I  should  say  that  this  ignorance  of  our 
people  as  to  the  true  nature  of  Christianity 
is  the  main  reason  why  they  do  not  believe  in 
it,  and  why  there  are  so  few  Christians  in  the 
country. 

But  there  is  yet  another  reason  which  has  .,-> 
kept  back  our  people  from  believing  in  Chris-  T 
tianity.  It  was  not  simply  because  they  did 
not  understand  it,  but  because  they  were  afraid 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  They  had 
been  taught  to  hate  it  and  had  come  to  despise 
its  very  name. 

You  know  that  for  many  centuries  before 
the  Restoration  of  1868  Christianity  was 
strictly  prohibited  in  our  country.  All  who 
professed  to  be  Christians  ran  the  risk  of  suf- 
fering capital  punishment.  I  remember  the 
time  when  we  used  to  see  the  government 
notice  boards  set  up  in  various  places,  stating 
that  "  Belief  in  the  evil  religion  of  Christ  is 
strictly  forbidden  by  order." 


24      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

I  have  seen  many  times  people  trampling 
upon  the  cross  of  Christ  by  order  of  govern- 
ment officials.  This  was  called  picture  tram- 
pling, because  people  were  ordered  to  trample 
upon  a  picture  of  Jesus  upon  the  cross.  It  was 
a  great  occasion  and  was  counted  as  one  of 
the  great  festivals  of  the  year.  If  any  one 
refused  to  step  upon  the  picture  he  would  be 
arrested  on  the  spot  and  thrown  into  prison. 
Even  after  the  Restoration  there  were  found 
many  Christians  in  the  prisons  in  various  parts 
of  the  country.  No  wonder  Japanese  people 
at  large  should  be  afraid  of  believing  in  a  re- 
ligion thus  despised. 

Although  at  the  present  time  there  is  no  such 
barbarous  law  on  the  statute  books  of  Japan, 
yet  the  odium  of  the  olden  time  prohibition 
still  attaches  to  the  name  of  the  religion  of 
Jesus.  So  you  see  it  is  of  the  first  importance 
that  these  prejudices  be  removed  by  teaching 
our  people  the  true  nature  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  helping  them  to  see  for  them- 
selves its  lasting  truth  and  beauty. 

THE   TRUE   MOTIVE  OF   PREACHING 

I  am  now  a  Christian,  and  I  am  preaching 
Christianity  to  my  fellow  countrymen.  But 
at  first  I  did  not  like  this  new  religion.  I  be- 
lieved with  the  rest  of  my  countrymen  that  it 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        25 

was  a  false  faith  and  that  the  introduction  of 
such  an  evil  religion  into  our  beloved  country- 
would  be  a  great  misfortune.  I  thought  it  the 
duty  of  all  patriots  to  oppose  in  every  way  the 
spread  of  such  a  religion  in  our  country. 

When  I  really  heard  Christian  preaching 
and  read  the  Bible  and  studied  it  carefully,  I 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  Christianity  is  not 
only  a  good  religion  but  it  is  the  best  religion, 
in  fact  the  only  true  religion  in  the  world. 
Its  introduction  into  our  country  is  not  only 
useful  but  urgently  necessary.  Without  its 
teachings  no  country  can  ever  become  truly 
civilized,  powerful  and  righteous. 

Now,  you  know,  when  we  have  found  any- 
thing good  and  profitable  to  our  people  and  our 
country  it  is  our  highest  duty  to  tell  it  to  our 
fellow  countrymen,  and  share  with  them  the 
benefits  thereof.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we 
have  found  anything  bad  and  harmful  to  our 
fellow  countrymen  it  is  also  our  paramount 
duty  to  warn  them  of  it.  We  must  share  with 
our  fellow  countrymen  our  knowledge  of  all 
things  good  or  bad.    This  is  true  patriotism. 

My  friends,  this  is  the  only  motive  which 
impels  me  to  preach  Christianity  to  my  coun- 
trymen. I  am  not  preaching  for  my  own 
profit.  Please  do  not  misunderstand  me  on 
this  point. 


26      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

My  one  and  only  object  in  preaching  tonight 
is  to  give  you  an  opportunity  to  examine  and 
understand  the  true  nature  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, and  accept  it  for  your  own  sake.  That 
is  all  and  nothing  else.  Therefore,  after  hear- 
ing me  tonight,  if  you  feel  that  you  are  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  and  the  worth  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  I  earnestly  urge  you  to  accept  it 
now  and  become  a  follower  of  Jesus  Christ. 
But  if  you  are  not  so  convinced,  and  still  think 
that  it  is  not  a  good  religion,  you  are  free  to 
reject  it.  I  have  no  wish  to  force  it  upon  you. 
You  are  at  liberty  either  to  accept  or  reject  it. 
But  after  being  fully  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
the  Christian  religion,  if  you  still  resist  that 
conviction  and  refuse  to  follow  its  leading 
through  fear  of  unpleasant  consequences,  then 
I  should  call  that  an  act  of  cowardice. 

You  know  the  saying  of  our  venerable  sage, 
"  If  a  man  will  not  obey  the  mandate  of  his 
conscience  and  reason,  it  should  be  counted  to 
him  as  an  act  of  cowardice." 

It  is  my  duty,  friends,  this  evening  to  pre- 
sent the  great  truths  of  Christianity  in  such  a 
way  that  you  may  grasp  them  in  one  hearing, 
and  make  an  intelligent  decision  as  to  whether 
or  not  you  will  accept  them. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        27 

THE  WHOLE  TRUTH   IN   ONE   SERMON 

Now  to  accomplish  such  a  purpose  I  must 
necessarily  proceed  a  little  differently  from  our 
usual  method  of  preaching.  Generally  we 
preach  one  truth  or  one  part  of  this  great  re- 
ligion at  a  time.  One  Sunday  I  might  be 
preaching  about  the  love  of  God.  Another 
Sunday  about  the  righteousness  of  God,  and 
so  on.  So  that  if  you  should  come  to  our  serv- 
ice but  one  Sunday  you  could  learn  but  one 
truth  or  one  side  of  the  Christian  religion.  If 
you  come  continuously,  after  hearing  many 
sermons  you  might  be  able  to  learn  the  whole 
truth.  But  tonight  I  am  going  to  give  you  the 
whole  truth  at  one  time.  I  will  try  to  pack 
the  truths  of  Christianity  into  one  sermon,  so 
that  you  may  grasp  the  whole  at  one  hearing 
and  make  your  final  decision  for  it  at  this  time. 

If  you  were  going  to  tell  the  people  what  the 
form  of  a  human  body  is  you  would  not  speak 
about  the  feet  or  hands  only.  Because  though 
they  are  very  important  members  of  the  human 
body  yet  they  do  not  constitute  the  whole  body. 
You  might  explain  the  construction  of  these 
members  as  fully  and  as  minutely  as  possible, 
yet  you  could  never  in  this  way  alone  make 
people  understand  what  the  shape  of  the 
human  body  is.    In  order  to  make  people  un- 


28      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

derstand  this  you  must  show  them  the  whole 
body  from  head  to  foot  at  one  view.  You 
must  show  them  that  the  human  head  is  a 
round  thing,  resting  on  the  neck  and  trunk; 
that  the  arms  and  hands  hang  on  the  sides  of 
the  trunk;  while  the  legs  and  feet  support  the 
whole.  Then  they  can  get  some  idea  of  the 
general  shape  and  appearance  of  the  human 
body. 

In  the  same  way  I  will  show  you  tonight 
the  whole  of  Christianity,  from  head  to  foot, 
in  one  long  look. 

DO    NOT   COME   A   SECOND   TIME 

Before  I  proceed,  however,  I  must  ask  one 
favor  from  you  all,  a  favor  I  ask  in  every 
place  where  I  speak  on  this  subject.  That  is, 
please  do  not  leave  the  place  in  the  middle  of 
my  sermon.  As  you  have  come  to  hear  me 
preach,  please  stay  to  the  very  end.  If  you 
leave  before  the  close  not  only  will  you  fail  to 
understand  my  sermon,  but  I  am  afraid  you 
will  misunderstand  it.  I  have  been  several 
times  misunderstood  by  those  who  have  heard 
only  a  part  of  my  sermon,  especially  as  the  last 
section  in  which  I  deal  with  what  may  be  called 
the  soul  or  life  of  the  Christian  religion  is  the 
most  important  part.  If  you  miss  that  last 
section  you  can  never  get  the  living  form  of 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        29 

Christianity,  for  without  it  Christianity  is  a 
dead  religion. 

But  if  you  stay  to  the  end  and  hear  my 
whole  sermon  I  believe  you  can  get  a  fair 
knowledge  of  the  outHne  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. Of  course  in  a  one-night  talk  I  can  not 
go  into  details  and  speak  of  the  deep  things  of 
Christianity ;  but  I  hope  I  can  give  you  at  least 
such  a  bird's-eye  view  of  Christianity  as  you 
would  get  of  a  city  from  an  airplane  flying 
above  it. 

One  thing  more,  I  preach  here  tomorrow 
night  also.  But  I  am  going  to  preach  the  same 
sermon  again,  exactly  the  same  sermon  as  to- 
night. Therefore,  those  who  hear  me  tonight 
need  not  come  again  tomorrow  evening.  One 
hearing  is  enough.  And  there  are  many  in  this 
city  who  could  not  come  tonight  and  who  have 
not  yet  heard  Christian  preaching.  Perhaps 
there  are  many  such  in  your  own  homes  or 
among  your  friends.  Won't  you  send  them  or 
bring  them  here  tomorrow  evening  and  let 
them  also  hear  the  gospel  of  Christ?  I  desire 
that  all  our  people  should  have  an  opportunity 
to  hear  the  way  of  salvation.  Of  course  if 
there  are  any  among  you  who  wish  to  hear 
the  same  sermon  again,  then  come  tomorrow 
evening  also.  I  will  not  object  to  your  com- 
ing again,  and  perhaps  you  can  understand  it 
better  by  hearing  it  twice. 


PART  I 

CONCERNING  GOD 


THE  BIBLE  THE  ONLY  BOOK 

MY  friends,  this  is  the  Bible.  This  is 
the  only  book  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. There  is  none  beside  this  one 
book  that  can  be  called  the  book  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

There  are  innumerable  books  written  con- 
cerning Christianity  but  if  you  ask  what  is  the 
book  of  Christianity,  I  answer  that  this  Bible 
is  the  only  book  and  there  is  none  beside.  This 
Bible  consists  of  two  parts,  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testament.  The  Old  Testament  was 
written  before  Christ,  and  the  New  Testament 
after  Christ.  The  whole  Bible  contains  sixty- 
six  different  books,  of  which  thirty-nine  are  in 
the  Old  Testament  and  twenty-seven  are  in  the 
New  Testament. 

For  those  who  read  the  Bible  the  first  time 
I  think  it  is  easier  and  better  to  begin  with  the 
New  Testament,  especially  with  the  four 
gospel  stories  of  Christ.  This  Bible  is  not  a 
difficult  book  to  read  like  the  books  of  Con- 
fucius and  Mencius.  It  is  written  in  a  plain 
and  easy  style.  Moreover  it  has  Kana  [the 
Japanese  Syllabary]  beside  the  Chinese  char- 


34      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

acters,  so  that  any  one  who  knows  Kana  can 
read  every  page  of  the  entire  book.  And  the 
Bible  is  not  a  very  costly  book.  You  can  get 
the  whole  Bible  for  less  than  half  a  dollar,  and 
a  copy  of  the  New  Testament  for  five  cents. 
Therefore  any  one  who  has  fifty  cents  can  buy 
the  entire  book  of  the  Christian  religion,  and 
if  he  knows  forty-eight  Kana  he  can  read  the 
jl  whole  Bible  through.  I  think  there  is  no  other 
I  religion  in  the  world  which  is  so  easy  to  study 
;'  as  Christianity.  So  I  hope  you  will  all  get 
that  Bible  and  read  it  carefully,  then  you  can 
understand  for  yourselves  what  Christianity  is. 
However,  to  read  the  Bible  through  is  not 
an  easy  task.  My  Bible  has  twelve  hundred 
and  twenty  pages.  To  read  through  a  book  of 
over  a  thousand  pages  is  rather  hard  work. 
Moreover,  in  one  sermon  I  couldn't  explain  the 
Bible  from  beginning  to  end.  But  it  is  not 
necessary  to  do  that  in  order  to  understand  the 
Christian  religion. 

There  is  another  and  much  shorter  way.  I 
have  read  this  Bible  through,  studying  it  care- 
fully, and  I  have  found  that  there  are  three 
great  points  around  which  all  its  teachings 
cluster. 

These  are:  first,  God;  secondly,  Sin;  and, 
thirdly.  Salvation.  These  three  are  its  funda- 
mental truths.     All  other  teachings  hang  on 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        35 

these  three.  And  now  therefore  as  soon  as 
you  fully  understand  these  three  points  you 
jean  easily  understand  all  the  other  teachings, 
j  ;So  I  think  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  those 
who  wish  to  understand  the  Christian  religion 
to  get  a  clear  conception  of  these  fundamental 
truths.  Now  I  will  explain  each  of  these  in 
order. 

A  LAND  OF   MILLION    GODS 

The  first  is  God.  So  I  must  tell  you  first  of 
all  about  God.  But  when  I  say  I  must  speak 
about  God,  there  are  many  people  among  you 
who  say  at  once :  "  Oh,  we  know  gods.  No 
Japanese  can  be  ignorant  of  gods,  seeing  our 
country  is  in  the  land  of  the  gods. — We  have 
eight  million  gods  in  our  country.  We  have 
god-shelves  in  our  homes.  We  have  tutelary 
gods  in  our  towns  and  villages.  What  need 
is  there  of  hearing  any  more  about  gods,  when 
every  one  knows  them  and  worships  them? 
If  it  is  a  talk  about  gods  that  we  are  listening 
to  we  need  not  come  to  a  Christian  service  to 
hear  it.  We  have  imported  many  good  things 
from  the  western  countries,  such  as  railroads, 
steamships,  the  telegraph,  and  so  on,  because 
we  did  not  have  them  before  in  our  country. 
But  what  use  is  there  of  importing  more  gods 
from  the  western  world  when  we  have  so  many 


36      THE  THREE  PIOUR  SERMON 

gods  here  already,  perhaps  more  than  we 
need?" 

That  is  the  objection  raised  by  many  of  our 
people  to  the  teaching  of  God. 

It  is  true  that  all  Japanese  believe  in  gods 
from  childhood.  I  am  a  Japanese.  I  am  not  a 
foreigner.  In  my  father's  house  we  had  a  god- 
shelf.  In  my  own  town  we  had  the  shrine  of 
the  tutelary  god.  I  know  very  well  that  our 
land  is  a  land  of  eight  million  gods.  From  my 
childhood  I  was  a  most  devoted  worshipper  of 
the  gods.  My  own  guardian  god  was  the  god 
of  writing  [Ten  Zin].  Our  family  crest  is  the 
plum  blossom,  which,  as  you  know,  is  the  crest 
of  the  god  Ten  Zin.  We  used  to  say  that  our 
family  is  related  in  some  way  to  that  god  of 
writing.  In  devotion  to  the  gods  of  our  an- 
cestors I  was  not  a  whit  behind  any  other 
Japanese. 

But  you  see  the  gods  that  we  Japanese  used 
to  worship  are  entirely  different  from  the  God 
whom  Christians  worship,  and  I  will  try  to 
show  you  the  difference  between  the  Japanese 
gods  and  the  Christian's  God. 

THE    christian's   CONCEPTION   OF  GOD 

I  will  begin  with  the  God  of  Christianity. 
Christianity  teaches  that  there  is  onlyone 
true  God  in  the  universe.    One  and  not  many. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         37 

If  you  ask  who  is  this  one  true  God,  Chris- 
tianity will  answer  thus:  The  one  true  God 
whom  we  Christians  worship  is  the  God  who 
made  heaven  and  earth,  and  all  things  therein. 
God  is  the  Creator  of  the  Universe. 

When  I  say  heaven  in  this  connection  I 
mean  the  heavenly  bodies — the  sun,  moon  and 
stars.  All  these  heavenly  bodies  were  created 
by  God.  Earth  here  means  of  course  the 
globe  whereon  we  live ;  and  by  "  all  things," 
I  mean  all  animals  and  birds,  grasses  and  trees, 
and  everything  else  that  we  find  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth,  having  Man  at  the  head  of 
creation. 

Thus  Christianity  teaches  that  all  things  in 
heaven  and  on  earth  were  created  by  God  in 
the  beginning,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
whole  universe  that  was  not  created  by  Him. 

You  know  this  building  did  not  come  of  it- 
self. It  was  built,  but  by  whom?  Of  course 
by  carpenters.  Thus  in  the  same  way  this  uni- 
verse did  not  come  of  itself.  It  was  created  by 
God — in  the  beginning.  And  the  Creator  of 
this  universe  must  be  One.  There  cannot  be 
two  creators  in  this  one  universe.  This  is  the 
Christian  conception,  of  God. 


38      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

THE   JAPANESE   CONCEPTION   OF   GOD 

If  you  compare  these  two  conceptions  you 
can  easily  understand  the  difference  between 
the  gods  whom  we  worship  in  Japan  and  the 
God  whom  Christians  worship,  according  to 
the  teachings  of  the  Bible. 

But,  remember  this,  that  when  I  tell  you 
stories  of  the  gods  of  Japan  I  am  giving  you 

;  my  own  personal  experiences.  Because  I  my- 
self believed  in  these  gods  from  my  childhood. 

,  So  you  see  I  am  not  simply  quoting  from  some- 
body else.  On  the  contrary,  mine  are  all  first- 
hand personal  experiences. 

THERE   IS   NO   GOD   WITHOUT   A    NAME 

In  Japan  people  say  there  are  many  gods, 
even  eight  million  of  them.  This  is  a  funda- 
mental difference — belief  in  many  gods  and 
belief  in  one  God.  Moreover,  Japanese  gods 
have  names.  There  is  no  nameless  god  in  this 
country,  just  as  there  is  no  nameless  man  in 
this  town. 

If  you  go  to  any  town  and  simply  inquire 
for  a  man  nobody  can  answer  you.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  man  without  a  name  in  the 

Itown.  You  must  ask  for  such  and  such  a 
man  by  name.  Just  so,  if  you  simply  say  god 
in  this  country  nobody  can  understand  what 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         39 

god  you  are  speaking  of.    You  must  give  the 
name  of  the  particular  god  you  are  asking  for. 

Hachiman — Ten  Zin — Gongen — Konjin — 
and  so  on. 

We  have  a  mountain  god,  a  wind  god,  a 
water  god,  a  fire  god,  an  earth  god,  and  so  on. 
We  were  taught  in  this  country  that  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  world  are  governed  by  dif- 
ferent sets  of  gods,  just  as  the  different  prov- 
inces of  the  country  are  governed  by  dif- 
ferent governors.  Not  only  that,  but  towns 
and  villages  have  their  own  tutelary  gods  to 
guard  and  protect  them. 

The  tutelary  god  of  my  own  town  was  the 
fire  god.  Once  a  year  we  used  to  have  a  great 
festival  in  his  honour.  On  that  day  the  people 
made  a  great  pile  of  firewood  in  front  of  the 
big  shrine  and  burned  it  all  through  the  night. 
Toward  dawn,  when  all  the  wood  was  burned, 
leaving  a  big  bed  of  red  coals,  the  priests  who 
had  been  dancing  all  night  in  the  temple,  with 
drawn  swords  in  one  hand  and  tinkling  bells 
in  the  other,  came  down  from  the  temple  and; 
ran  barefooted  over  the  coals  but  were  not 
burned.  This  was  regarded  as  a  miracle. 
Great  crowds  from  far  and  near  came  to  see 
this  miraculous  deed.  After  the  priests  had 
several  times  run  over  the  fire,  the  people  them- 
selves began  to  run  through  the  fire,  trampling 


tTL 


40      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

upon  it,  believing  that  thus  they  would  gain 
some  benefit  for  themselves.  The  ashes  were 
later  carried  away,  for  the  people  believed 
those  ashes  had  great  healing  power  for  many 
kinds  of  diseases. 

THE   THUNDER   GOD 

When  I  was  a  child  we  believed  that  thunder 
was  a  terrible  god.  Whenever  we  heard  the 
thunder  rolling  we  thought  the  thunder  god 
was  angry  and  kicking  around  in  heaven,  thus 
making  a  tremendous  noise.  And  we  were 
told  that  the  lightning  was  the  fire  in  his  eyes 
when  he  gazed  at  a  wicked  man.  At  such 
times  we  used  to  crawl  under  the  mosquito 
nets  and  try  to  hide  ourselves,  for  we  were 
I  told  that  even  the  thunder  god  could  not  reach 
us  through  the  net.  And  if  he  should  fall 
down  on  the  net  it  is  so  soft  and  light  he 
would  be  tangled  in  it  and  could  do  no  harm 
to  the  person  inside. 

Oftentimes  a  man  walking  in  the  field  was 
struck  down  by  the  lightning  and  killed.  Then 
the  people  said,  "  That  man  must  have  been  a 
very  bad  man,  because  the  thunder  god  has 
fallen  from  heaven  upon  him  and  punished 
him  for  his  wickedness."  But,  we  boys  at 
such  times  said,  "  Why,  if  the  thunder  god 
has  come  down  from  heaven  to  punish  that  one 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        41 

man,  how  can  he  get  back  to  heaven  again, 
seeing  there  is  no  ladder  on  earth  which 
reaches  to  heaven?"  But  we  were  told: 
"  There  is  no  need  of  such  a  ladder  for  the 
\  thunder  god  because  he  can  go  back  to  heaven 
J  by  climbing  any  tall  tree.  Go  and  see  that  pine 
tree  yonder  then  you  can  understand  how  the 
thunder  god  has  gone  back  to  heaven."  On 
going  we  found  the  tree  had  been  split  from 
top  to  bottom,  and  this  was  said  to  be  done 
by  the  thunder  god  climbing  that  tree  in  order 
to  get  back  to  heaven. 

Yes,  the  thunder  god  was  regarded  as  one 
of  the  most  dreadful  gods  of  the  country.  We 
used  to  see  pictures  of  the  thunder  god.  He 
looked  something  like  a  black  devil  beating 
drums  with  all  his  might.  And  we  were  very 
much  afraid  of  him. 

Now  we  are  using  thai  fire  in  the  thunder 
-  god's   eyes    for   lighting    our   houses.      You 
'  know  the  electric  light  is  the  same  thing  as 
j  the  lightning.      In   olden   times   we   had  no 
'  electric   light   and   no   gas,   not   even  lamps. 
Some  children  might  think  that  we  have  always 
had  lamps.    But  no,  there  was  no  lamp  in  our 
country  in  the  olden  time.     Lamps  were  im- 
ported from  the  West.     You  know  the  word 
lamp  is  not  a  Japanese  word,  it  is  an  English 
word. 


42      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

What  do  you  think  we  had  in  those  old  days 
for  lighting  our  houses?  We  had  a  light  called 
Andon.  We  used  to  put  rape  seed  oil  into  a 
plate  with  two  or  three  wicks  floating  in  it, 
light  their  ends  and  thus  get  a  dim  light  in 
our  houses.  This  is  an  Andon.  It  was  a 
very  poor  light  indeed.  We  even  had  to  read 
by  such  a  poor  light.  It  was  all  right  while 
we  were  reading  Chinese  books  only  because 
they  were  written  in  large  characters.  But 
when  we  began  to  read  English  books  by  such 
a  poor  light  it  at  once  spoilt  our  eyes  and  the 
result  is,  as  you  see,  we  are  obliged  to  wear 
glasses. 

THE   WORSHIP   OF  THE   HEAVENLY   BODIES 

If  you  look  back  fifty  years  you  find  our 
country  was  just  as  dark  as  a  house  lighted 
by  these  Andons. 

There  was  no  school  in  our  country  which 
could  be  called  a  school  in  the  modern  sense. 
The  only  school  for  the  common  people  was  a 
place  to  learn  to  write  [Tenarai].  There 
were  also  schools  for  learning  to  read  Chinese 
books,  but  these  were  for  the  higher  classes 
alone.     No  commoner  was  allowed  to  attend. 

Ignorance  and  darkness  reigned  all  over  the 
country.  Therefore  the  people  were  exceed- 
ingly superstitious  and  childish.     You  know 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         43 

superstition  and  ignorance  go  hand  in  hand. 
Every  morning  we  worshipped  the  rising  sun 
with  clapping  of  hands  and  a  prayer,  calHng  on 
the  sun  as  O  Hi  Sama — Honoured  Fire,  or 
O  Tento  Sama.  When  the  moon  flooded  the 
earth  with  her  silvery  light,  we  worshipped  her 
also  as  the  most  beautiful  goddess  of  heaven. 
Children  loved  the  moon  and  worshipped  her. 
Some  stars  were  also  worshipped  as  gods. 
There  is  a  large  star  on  each  side  of  the  Milky 
Way  to  which  we  used  to  pray.  One  was  rep- 
resented by  a  woman  sitting  at  a  loom,  and  the 
other  by  a  man  taking  care  of  a  cow.  The 
woman  star  was  called  Tanabata  San — the 
weaver,  and  the  man  star  was  called  Ushikai 
San — cowherd.  They  were  man  and  wife. 
The  Milky  Way  which  separates  them  was 
called  Amano  Kawa  (Heavenly  Stream). 
Now  these  two  star  gods  meet  only  once  a 
year,  on  a  certain  summer  day,  and  if  on  that 
day  unfortunately  it  rains  and  the  heavenly 
stream  is  swollen  so  they  can  not  meet,  they 
must  wait  until  the  next  summer.  As  it  is 
a  great  pity  for  these  star  gods  not  to  meet 
even  once  a  year,  it  is  the  duty  of  men  living 
on  earth  to  help  them  out  by  celebrating  their 
festival  and  so  preventing  the  flooding  of  the 
heatenly  stream.  So  we  used  to  have  a  great 
festival  on  that  day.    Then  we  were  taught 


M      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

to  worship  all  these  heavenly  bodies  as 
gods. 

You  who  go  to  school  now  all  study  astron- 
omy, and  those  who  have  studied  astronomy 
know  what  these  heavenly  bodies  are.  You 
need  not  be  told  that  they  are  not  gods. 
Everybody  knows  that  nowadays.  But  when  I 
was  a  child  we  knew  nothing  of  astronomy; 
we  were  not  taught  that  science  in  our  old 
Chinese  schools;  we  were  taught  only  the 
Chinese  classics  and  histories,  that  is  all.  No 
astronomy,  no  physics,  no  chemistry,  no,  not 
a  bit  of  modern  science.  So  we  were  perfectly 
ignorant  about  the  phenomena  of  the  natural 
world.  If  you  look  at  the  full  moon  you  see 
shady  spots  on  its  surface.  When  we  children 
asked  our  old  folks,  "  What  are  those  shady 
spots  on  the  face  of  the  beautiful  moon?", 
they  said,  "  Oh,  that  is  a  rabbit  living  in  the 
moon."  In  old  books  you  find  a  picture  of 
the  moon  in  which  a  rabbit  is  represented 
pounding  a  mortar  with  pestles. 

All  sorts  of  such  funny  things  we  were 
taught  about  the  heavenly  bodies.  We  were 
taught  to  worship  not  only  these  heavenly 
bodies  but  also  still  baser  objects. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        45 

THE   FOX   GOD  AND  OTHERS 

We  worshipped  foxes  and  badgers,  snakes 
and  centipedes.  We  worshipped  the  fox,  call- 
ing him  Inari — Sama.  Of  course,  Inari 
means  the  god  of  rice,  and  learned  people  say- 
that  it  is  not  a  fox  but  a  representation  of  the 
god  of  the  rice  crop — so  important  to  our 
country.  But  common  people  could  not  under- 
stand such  a  fine  distinction,  and  they  simply 
worshipped  the  fox  as  god  of  rice.  If  we  saw 
a  small  fox  we  did  not  care  much  about  him; 
but  when  a  big  old  fox  appeared,  people  began 
to  say :  "  There  comes  the  Fox  God.  We  must 
offer  him  Abura  age  [fried  bean  curd],  and 
Adzuki  meshi  [rice  cooked  with  red  beans],  i 
both  of  which  foxes  are  very  fond  of.  So 
they  would  bring  these  offerings  to  the  den  of 
the  fox  and  leave  them  at  the  entrance.  The 
fox  might  come  out  during  the  night  and  have 
a  good  time  feasting  on  these  offerings.  I 
know  that  one  of  my  friends  even  built 
a  small  hut  near  the  fox's  den  and  slept  there 
during  the  night  to  keep  company  with  the 
fox  god. 

In  the  same  way  people  worshipped  badgers, 
snakes,  centipedes,  whenever  big  ones  ap- 
peared. These,  you  know,  are  mere  beasts 
and  worms.     But  we  were  so  ignorant  and 


46      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

superstitious  tKat  we  stooped  to  jvorship  even 
these  base  creatures. 

Whenever  an  unusually  fine  tree  was  found 
in  the  forest  people  used  to  say  that  that  tree 
had  a  spirit  in  it,  just  as  men  have  spirits  in 
them.  Then  they  decorated  the  tree  by  put- 
ting the  sacred  straw  rope  around  it  and  wor- 
shipped it  as  a  god  of  big  trees.  There  was 
even  an  old  story  that  the  spirit  of  a  certain 
big  willow  tl'ee  became  a  beautiful  woman  and 
married  a  very  honest  and  good  man  of  the 
town. 

When  any  peculiarly  formed  rocks  were 
found  in  the  mountains  they  were  also  bound 
with  the  sacred  rope  and  worshipped  as  gods. 
,  Anything  and  everything  which  looked  a 
little  strange  and  uncommon  was  soon  made 
into  a  god.  I  was  told  that  in  some  places 
people  even  worshipped  cows  and  horses. 

PRESENT-DAY   SUPERSTITION 

Such  superstition  is  not  confined  however  to 
old-time  Japan.  Even  at  this  present  time  you 
see  like  superstitions  prevailing  all  over  the 
country,  and  perhaps  even  worse  than  the  old 
ones. 

You  all  know  what  kind  of  a  man  Ishikawa 
Goyemon  was  [the  famous  Japanese  robber]. 
But  now  even  he  is  worshipped  by  many  people 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        47 

as  a  god.  I  wonder  what  kind  of  a  god  such 
a  man  can  be. 

At  the  grave  of  Nedzumi  Kozo  [a  famous 
pickpocket]  it  is  said  that  incense  is  always 
found  burning.  Who  offers  that  incense? 
Why,  all  the  pickpockets  of  the  city  of  Tokyo 
burn  incense  there.  He  is  the  god  of  the  pick- 
pockets, while  Ishikawa  Goyemon  is  the  god  of 
thieves.  When  I  was  travelling  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  island  of  Kyushu  one  day  I 
found  in  a  certain  temple  a  great  many  flags 
and  banners  flying.  I  asked  the  people  of  the 
place  what  kind  of  a  god  was  in  this  temple — 
"  I  see  such  a  lot  of  flags  and  banners  fl3ang, 
it  certainly  must  be  a  very  famous  god."  The 
man  told  me,  "  It  is  the  god  of  gamblers." 
All  these  flags  and  banners  were  offered  by  the 
gamblers  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  And 
he  said,  moreover,  "If  you  have  faith  in  this 
god  you  will  win  in  all  games,  whether  in 
gambling  or  stock  speculation,  or  even  in 
wrestling  and  fighting." 

And  now,  my  friends,  what  do  you  think 
about  these  gods?  Do  you  think  that  there 
are  such  gods  as  a  god  of  thieves,  a  god  of 
pickpockets,  a  god  of  gamblers?  It  is  fearful 
even  to  think  of  such  things.  It  would  indeed 
be  intolerable  if  such  gods  really  existed  in 
this  world. 


48      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

No,  no,  there  can  never  be  such  gods  in  this 
world. 

How  can  foxes  and  badgers,  snakes  and 
centipedes,  trees  and  rocks  be  gods? 

How  can  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  be  gods? 

No  intelHgent  person  at  the  present  time  be- 
lieves in  such  things  as  these. 

But  alas !  in  our  country,  even  in  this  present 
day,  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  who  still 
believe  in  these  false  gods.  Why?  Because 
they  are  ignorant  and  untaught,  and  can  not 
see  the  real  nature  of  these  so-called  gods.  It 
is  mere  superstition.  Some  of  our  people  are 
yet  very  superstitious. 

THE  AMALGAMATION   OF  TEMPLES  AND 
SHRINES 

Superstition  has  increased  immensely  the 
number  of  gods.  So  much  so  that  at  the  pres- 
ent time  our  government  is  rather  troubled  as 
to  how  to  dispose  of  these  innumerable  false 
gods. 

Of  course,  the  government  cannot  tell  the 
people  in  plain  words  that  what  they  are  now 
worshipping  are  all  false  gods,  and  therefore 
that  they  had  better  throw  them  away.  No, 
the  government  cannot  issue  such  orders.  In 
place  of  that  our  government  has  given  private 
instructions   to  the  people   in   regard   to   the 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         49 

amalgamation  of  temples.  According  to  these 
instructions  many  towns  and  villages  have 
begun  the  amalgamation  of  their  temples,  and 
are  thus  reducing  their  number  to  a  very  few/ 

In  one  place  there  were  over  seventy  temples 
and  shrines.  But  now  the  people  have  reduced 
the  number  to  four. 

Poor  gods!  Those  formerly  living  in  big 
temples  by  themselves  are  now  crowded  into 
small  box-like  shrines,  placed  in  rows  of  ten 
or  twenty,  just  like  the  poor  people's  tenement 
houses  in  the  new  temple  grounds.  I  asked  a 
villager  why  they  showed  such  unkindness  to 
these  poor  gods  they  had  been  worshipping  for 
so  many  years.  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  the  cost  of 
living  is  so  high  nowadays  it  is  too  great  a 
burden  for  the  poor  villagers  to  support  so 
many  temples.  Though  it  may  be  inconvenient 
and  uncomfortable  for  these  gods  to  live  so 
crowded  together,  yet  for  the  sake  of  the 
people  we  put  them  together  in  the  new  temple 
ground." 

Well,  it  may  be  quite  convenient  for  the  vil- 
lagers, but  how  about  these  poor  gods? 

Do  you  think  that  they  are  satisfied  with 
such  treatment  by  the  villagers?  Of  course 
the  villagers  have  not  received  permission  from 
their  gods  to  carry  out  such  an  amalgamation. 
They  have  done  it  without  any  consultation  or 


50      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

conference  with  the  gods  themselves.  If  these 
gods  are  really  living  gods  do  you  think  they 
v^ill  be  contented  with  such  treatment  by  the 
villagers?  You  know  our  homes  are  our 
castles.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to  defend 
his  castle.  If  any  one  should  break  into  your 
house  and  carry  you  away  without  your  con- 
sent and  put  you  into  a  miserable  hut,  would 
you  submit  to  such  insolence  without  resist- 
ance? Oh,  no,  you  would  fight  such  an  one 
with  all  your  might.  Now  as  these  gods  did 
not  fight  the  insolent  villagers  we  must  con- 
clude that  they  are  not  living  gods.  They 
are  the  work  of  human  hands,  the  result  of 
superstition. 

THE   GOD-MAKING   BUSINESS 

In  the  old  days  of  our  childhood  we  used  to 
boast  of  our  country  having  so  many  gods. 
Perhaps  there  may  not  be  another  country 
on  this  whole  earth  which  has  eight  million 
gods  of  its  own.  Ours  is  really  the  land  of 
gods.  But  we  boasted  of  this  foolish  thing 
because  in  those  days  we  did  not  yet  know 
anything  of  the  other  countries  of  the  world. 
Since  we  have  come  to  know  other  countries 
our  boasting  is  in  vain.  Look  at  the  other 
nations.  How  numerous  are  their  gods?  In- 
deed, the  nations  of  Europe  and  America  have 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        51 

only  one  God  to  worship,  because  they  are 
Christian  countries.  Christians,  as  I  told  you 
in  the  beginning,  worship  only  one  God.  But 
look  at  China,  India  and  all  these  savage  na- 
tions of  Africa.  How  numerous  are  their 
gods?  India  has  the  greatest  number  of  gods 
of  any  nation  in  the  world.  The  present  popu- 
lation of  India  is  said  to  be  three  hundred  and 
fifteen  millions.  But  if  you  ask  an  Indian  how 
many  gods  he  has  in  his  country  he  would  tell 
you  three  hundred  and  thirty  million  gods. 
That  is,  more  than  one  god  to  each  man.  If 
a  nation  could  boast  of  having  many  gods  I 
think  India  would  be  the  proudest  nation  of 
the  whole  world.  Our  eight  million  gods  can 
not  compete  with  their  three  hundred  million 
gods.  And  why  have  they  so  many  gods? 
Hov7  could  they  get  them?  Because  Indians 
themselves  make  their  own  gods.  If  people 
begin  to  make  their  own  gods  there  will  be  no 
end  of  god-making.  If  each  of  three  hundred 
million  people  tries  to  make  his  own  god,  you 
can  have  at  once  three  hundred  million  gods. 

But  I  think  this  god-making  business  is  not 
confined  to  India.  All  over  the  world,  in 
heathen  countries,  people  make  their  own  gods. 
They  carve  various  figures  out  of  wood,  stone 
and  metal,  and  overlay  them  with  gold  and 
silver,  and  kneel  down  before  them  and  wor- 


52      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

ship  them.  Yes,  this  god-making  is  a  very 
simple  process  indeed. 

We  have  asked  such  idol-worshippers  often : 
"  How  can  these  stone  or  wooden  images  be 
gods?  Are  they  not  of  the  same  kind  of  wood 
which  you  burn  in  your  stoves,  or  of  the  same 
kind  of  metal  and  stone  with  which  you  build 
your  houses?  Are  they  not  all  the  workman- 
ship of  carpenters  or  stone  masons?"  "Oh, 
yes,*'  they  say,  "  they  were  originally.  But 
now  they  have  the  spirits  of  gods  put  into 
them,  so  they  are  gods  and  we  must  worship 
them." 

"  But  how,"  we  ask,  "  did  these  spirits  of 
gods  get  into  these  figures,  or  who  put  them 
there?" 

"  The  priests  did,"  they  say. 

"  All  right,  but  who  are  these  priests  ?  Are 
they  not  like  other  men,  weak  human  beings? 
Are  the  gods  inferior  to  men?  Can  spirits  of 
gods  be  put  into  anything  of  stone  or  wood  by 
the  mere  will  of  a  human  being?  " 

Nonsense!  even  to  think  of  such  a  thing. 
But  all  these  idol  gods  are  made  in  this  way, 
and  are  then  worshipped  by  the  very  men  who 
made  them.  Everywhere  people  are  practising 
such  nonsense  in  god-making.  And  the  won- 
der is  that  they  really  believe  in  their  man- 
made  gods. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        53 

THE  SAVAGE  MAN  AND  HIS  STICK-GOD 

If  you  go  to  savage  countries  you  will  find 
more  amusing  things  than  god-making.  For 
instance,  when  some  men  go  out  hunting  and 
find  a  stick  on  the  road  they  pick  it  up,  stand 
it  up  by  the  roadside,  kneel  down  and  offer 
prayers.  They  earnestly  pray  for  good  luck 
in  finding  game.  If  they  are  fortunate  enough 
to  get  game  that  day,  on  their  return  they  bow 
down  to  their  stick-god  and  offer  him  the  best 
portion  of  the  meat  as  a  thank-offering.  But 
if  they  do  not  get  the  game  they  prayed  for 
they  become  angry  and  lay  the  entire  blame 
upon  the  stick-god  to  whom  they  offered 
prayers  in  the  morning.  When  they  see  the 
stick  still  standing  there  they  rush  at  it  and 
kick  it  over  and  trample  it,  even  binding  it  with 
ropes  and  putting  it  in  the  river,  saying  they 
have  punished  their  gods  for  not  answering 
their  prayers. 

What  an  amazing  thing  it  is !  Man  punish- 
ing his  god  for  not  answering  his  prayer ! 

But  if  you  think  it  over  you  can  see  the 
reason  at  once.  This  stick-god  is  made  by  the 
man  himself,  it  is  his  creature.  To  give  him 
good  luck  he  has  created  this  god  and  so  he 
has  the  power  to  punish  the  god.  God  here 
is  the  creature  instead  of  the  creator.     Such 


54i      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

a  god  is  like  the  hunter's  dog;  if  he  obeys  his 
master  and  does  his  work  well  he  will  be 
praised  and  rewarded.  But  if  he  does  not 
do  it,  of  course  he  will  be  punished  and 
beaten. 

We  were  laughing  at  the  foolishness  of  these 
savage  people,  and  saying  how  ridiculous  it  is 
for  a  man  to  pray  to  his  own  stick.  But  on 
reflection  I  say :  "  No."  We  can  not  laugh  at 
these  people  because  we  ourselves  have  done 
the  same  thing.  I  do  not  know  whether  you 
have  ever  done  such  things  or  not,  but  I  have 
quite  often.  I  mean  when  I  was  young.  Sup- 
pose I  was  travelling  in  an  unfamiliar  place 
and  came  to  a  crossroad  and  was  puzzled 
which  way  to  take,  I  would  first  try  to  find  out 
by  asking  some  one  who  knew  the  road.  But 
finding  no  one,  I  would  look  for  a  guide-post. 
If  there  was  no  such  post,  what  did  I  do?  I 
used  to  take  a  cane  if  I  happened  to  have  one, 
or  find  a  stick  on  the  road,  and  stand  it  up 
at  the  crossing;  then  shutting  my  eyes  I  let 
the  stick  fall,  and  if  I  found  it  on  the  right 
I  said  the  gods  called  me  to  take  the  turn  to 
the  right  and  I  followed  it.  If  I  had  neither 
cane  nor  stick,  I  held  out  my  left  hand  and 
spit  upon  it,  and  struck  it  with  two  fingers  of 
the  right  hand,  believing  the  gods  called  me  to 
go  in  the  direction  in  which  the  spittle  flew. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        66 

Thus  you  see  I  made  a  stick-  or  even  a  spittle- 
god. 

Now,  my  friends,  where  is  the  difference 
between  the  stick-god  of  the  savage  man  and 
my  spittle-god  ?    No  difference,  not  a  bit. 

Everywhere  ignorance  breeds  superstition. 
If  you  read  our  old  books  you  will  find  many 
stories  of  man's  beating  and  punishing  his 
gods  for  not  answering  his  prayers.  Human 
nature  works  in  the  same  manner  everywhere. 
All  over  the  world  uncivilized  peoples  make 
their  own  gods.  And  these  gods  are  nothing 
but  the  reflections  of  their  hearts.  So  origi- 
nated all  sorts  of  gods,  good,  bad,  high,  low, 
strong,  weak,  merciful,  cruel,  and  so  on.  As 
there  are  thieves,  pickpockets  and  gamblers  in 
this  world  so  came  the  gods  of  thieves,  pick- 
pockets and  gamblers.  And  as  there  are  many 
bad  women  in  the  world,  so  came  the  god  of 
licentiousness. 

DARKNESS  AND  IGNORANCE 

This  pitiable  state  of  mind  of  uncivilized 
peoples  is  like  the  darkness  of  the  night.  You 
know,  many  people  believe  ghosts  appear  in  the 
night-time  but  never  in  daylight.  During  the 
night  they  imagine  that  all  sorts  of  dreadful 
creatures  roam  about. 

Children  are  especially  afraid  to  go  out  in 


56      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

the  dark,  fearing  they  may  encounter  those 
dreadful  creatures  of  the  night.  Perhaps  yon- 
der in  a  dark  corner  Black  Bozu  [apparitions 
having  their  heads  shaven  Hke  Buddhist 
priests]  might  be  glaring  at  them.  Or,  under 
that  big  v^illow  tree,  white  ghosts  might  be 
standing,  pale-faced,  long-haired,  v^ith  their 
hands  in  front  of  them.  And  the  childish 
mind  imagines  these  frightful  creatures  make 
their  appearance  only  during  the  night;  when 
the  dawn  approaches  they  all  retreat  to  their 
hiding-places,  and  thei  world  is  once  more 
cleared  and  safe. 

Not  only  they,  but  even  the  stars  of  the 
night  which  twinkle  so  merrily  in  the  heavens, 
will  all  vanish  away  before  the  brightness  of 
the  morning  sun. 

Just  so,  while  the  country  is  uncivilized  and 
ignorance  reigns  among  the  people,  they  be- 
lieve in  all  sorts  of  false  gods  which  swarm  in 
the  imaginations  of  all  ignorant  people.  But 
when  once  the  sun  of  enlightenment  rises  on 
the  horizon  of  the  childish  mind,  all  these  ap- 
paritions will  disappear,  and  people  will  begin 
to  worship  only  the  one  true  God  of  the  uni- 
verse. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        57 

ONE   SUN — ONE   GOD 

You  know  that  well-known  saying,  "  There 
is  only  one  sun  in  heaven  and  not  two  suns, 
and  there  is  but  one  Lord  in  the  land  and  not 
two  Lords." 

Truly,  there  is  but  one  sun  in  heaven  that  ^^ 
shines  upon  this  earth  and  not  two.  No  man 
would  say  there  is  a  Japanese  sun  and  an 
American  sun — the  Japanese  sun  shines  only 
upon  Japan  and  the  American  sun  shines  only 
upon  America.  Is  there  one  among  us  so  fool- 
ish as  to  say  or  to  think  that,  although  our  sun 
is  round,  there  may  be  other  countries  where 
suns  are  triangular  ? 

No,  no,  the  sun  which  shines  upon  the  whole 
earth  is  one  and  the  same  sun. 

Now  seeing  that  even  the  material  sun  which 
lights  the  whole  world  is  one  and  not  many, 
can  you  still  say  that  our  spiritual  sun,  the  God 
of  the  whole  world,  is  many  rather  than  one? 

There  are  many  people  in  Japan  even  now 
who  say  that  the  different  countries  of  the 
world  were  created  by  different  sets  of  gods, 
and  are  ruled  and  protected  by  their  respective 
gods.  They  say  Japan  was  created  by  the  gods 
of  the  Japanese,  and  is  ruled  over  and  pro- 
tected by  them  alone.  So  we  Japanese  need 
not  worship  any  other  gods  but  our  own.     It 


58      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

is  right  for  people  of  other  countries  to  believe 
in  their  own  gods,  but  for  us  Japanese  to  be- 
lieve in  the  other  gods  of  the  world  and  for- 
sake our  own  gods,  the  gods  of  our  ancestors 
— would  be  unprofitable  to  our  country  and 
unfilial  to  our  ancestors. 

This  is  a  very  common  saying  among  many 
Japanese  who  do  not  understand  what  Chris- 
tianity is.  They  still  believe  that  the  different 
countries  of  the  world  were  created  by  and 
are  ruled  over  and  protected  by  different  sets 
of  gods.  And  in  the  opinion  of  many  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  people  of  each  country  to  reverence 
their  own  gods  and  not  those  of  any  other 
country. 

It  is  quite  natural  for  ignorant  people  to 
think  so.  But  do  you  think  that  in  the  light 
of  the  present-day  civilization  such  an  un- 
reasonable belief  can  be  maintained  ? 

ALL   MEN   ARE   SIMILAR 

Look,  for  example,  at  the  form  of  the 
human  body.  Can  you  imagine  that  the  dif- 
ferent races  of  the  world  were  created  by  dif- 
ferent sets  of  gods?  Do  you  think  that  the 
different  sets  of  gods  would  have  made  the 
people  of  this  world  so  nearly  alike  in  form  as 
they  are? 

The  world  population  is  now  approximately 


,GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         59 

seventeen  hundred  millions.  Take,  then,  the 
seventeen  hundred  million  human  beings  and 
examine  the  construction  of  their  bodily 
organs.  Do  you  think  you  can  find  any  differ- 
ence among  them  ?  No,  not  in  the  least.  The 
construction  of  the  human  body  is  exactly  the 
same  all  over  the  world.  Of  course  there  is  a 
difference  in  colour  among  the  different  races  of 
people;  some  are  white,  some  are  black,  some 
are  yellow  and  some  are  red;  but  this  differ- 
ence in  the  colour  of  the  skin  is  of  minor  im- 
portance and  is  often  due  to  climatic  conditions. 
Moreover,  we  find  a  difference  of  colour  not 
only  among  the  different  races,  but  even  among 
people  of  the  same  race.  Tonight,  I  believe, 
we  have  here  a  representative  gathering  of  the 
people  of  this  city.  And  yet  as  I  look  at  the 
audience  from  the  platform  I  see  a  marked 
difference  in  colour  among  you.  I  see  many 
beautifully  white  faces  among  you  as  white 
as  the  white  races  of  the  world.  But  I  must 
say,  though  I  am  sorry  to  say  it,  that  among 
you  I  see  also  faces  as  dark  as  the  brown  races 
of  the  world. 

Now  if  among  our  own  people  we  find  such 
a  difference  in  colour  it  is  quite  natural  that  we 
should  find  a  great  difference  in  colour  among 
|;he  different  races  of  the  world. 

But  what  I  am  here  contending  for  cis  to  the 


60      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

sameness  of  the  human  body  is  not  its  colour 
but  its  construction.  For  example,  in  travel- 
ling all  over  the  world  can  you  find  any  three- 
eyed  or  three-legged  people  among  the  races 
of  the  world?  Can  you  find  any  human  race 
which  has  six  fingers  or  six  toes  ?  In  one  place 
where  I  asked  this  question  one  of  my  audi- 
ence cried  out,  "  Oh,  yes,  there  are  six-fingered 
persons  in  the  world."  Then  I  said,  "  My 
friend,  where  did  you  find  such  a  person? 
Please  tell  me  the  place." 

He  answered,  "  Oh,  yes,  deformed  persons 
have  sometimes  six  fingers." 

Sure,  but  they  are  deformed,  not  ordinary 
men.  Among  ordinary  men  you  do  not  find 
six-fingered  persons.  Everywhere  in  this 
world  man  has  only  two  eyes,  two  hands,  two 
legs  and  ten  fingers.  Not  only  are  these 
external  organs  the  same  in  every  man  but 
all  of  the  internal  organs  are  the  same.  The 
lungs  spread  out  on  both  sides  of  the  chest 
.  like  two  branches  of  a  tree,  and  the  heart 
hangs  on  the  left  side.  Nobody  has  his  heart 
i  hanging  on  the  backbone.  Stomach  and 
'  bowels,  kidneys  and  liver,  are  in  exactly  the 
same  position.  So  all  human  beings  are  of  the 
same  form,  just  as  all  the  rice  crackers  cut  out 
by  the  same  cutter  are  the  same,  although  there 
may  be  a  difference  in  colour,  according  to  the 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        61 

degree  of  baking.  Some  are  baked  too  much 
and  become  black  as  Africans.  Some  are  not 
quite  done  and  are  pale  as  the  white  races. 
While  some  are  baked  just  enough  and  are 
coloured  like  the  yellow  people.  But  all  these 
differences  are  only  in  colour,  not  in  form  of 
construction. 

And  now,  if  there  are  many  gods  in  this 
world,  as  some  people  say,  each  trying  to  make 
their  own  people,  do  you  think  that  they  would 
make  them  so  nearly  alike?  We  can  not  sup- 
pose that  the  gods  of  the  whole  world  con- 
vened a  congress  of  gods  in  the  beginning  for 
the  man-making  business,  and  decided  upon 
the  form  of  man  by  majority  of  votes.  No, 
they  would  not  do  such  a  thing  in  consultation. 
And  if  really  these  different  sets  of  gods  each 
made  their  own  people  independently,  surely 
there  would  be  a  great  difference  in  the  form 
of  men.  Suppose  you  give  a  similar  piece  of 
cloth  to  each  of  ten  women  and  let  them  each 
make  a  dress,  entirely  independent  of  each 
other,  do  you  think  they  would  make  the  same 
kind  of  a  dress?    No,  impossible. 

GOD  IS  OUR   FATHER 

Now  what  does  this  prove  ?  Why,  it  proves 
decisively  that  the  god  who  made  the  people  of 
this  world  must  be  one  and  not  many.    There 


62      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

can  not  be  more  than  one  creator  of  the  world. 
And  this  one  true  God  who  made  the  seven- 
teen hundred  million  people  of  this  world  is 
the  true  and  real  Father  of  all  mankind.  We 
are  all  His  children.  We  all  have  our  earthly- 
parents  and  we  love  and  honour  them.  But 
they  have  simply  given  birth  to  us  and  not 
made  us.  There  is  a  great  difference  between 
giving  birth  to  a  child  and  making  a  child. 
Man  can  not  give  the  spirit  of  life  to  a  child. 
Only  God  can  give  the  spirit  to  man.  So  He 
is  the  true  spiritual  Father  of  us  all. 

H  any  man  disobeys  his  parents  and  treats 
them  unkindly,  he  will  be  condemned  by  his 
fellowmen  as  unfilial  and  undutiful.  You 
know  ingratitude  toward  one's  parents  is  re- 
garded in  our  country  as  a  most  heinous  sin. 
Our  obligation  toward  our  parents  is  said  to 
be  the  highest  obligation  on  this  earth,  and  is 
higher  than  the  highest  mountain  and  deeper 
than  the  deepest  sea.  And  now  if  you  say  that 
our  obligation  toward  our  earthly  parents  is 
higher  than  the  highest  mountain  of  the  earth, 
ought  we  not  to  say  that  our  obligation  toward 
our  Heavenly  Father  is  higher  than  the  very 
heavens?  Yes,  certainly,  our  ingratitude  to- 
ward our  Heavenly  Father  is  the  greatest  sin 
iof  all. 

We  are  indeed  the  children  of  God.    Here 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         63 

lies  the  dignity  of  man  as  the  head  of  crea- 
tion. 

The  true  worth  of  a  man  does  not  consist  in 
his  earthly  possessions  nor  in  his  human  rank. 
Of  course  these  have  their  place.  But  having 
or  not  having  them  does  not  make  a  bit  of 
difference  in  regard  to  our  true  dignity  as  the 
head  of  creation  and  our  worth  as  human 
beings.  Our  true  dignity  and  honour  lie  in  th'e" 
fact  that  we  are  created  in  the  image  of  God, 
thus  being  the  children  of  the  King  of  the 
Universe. 

Now  to  believe  in  this  one  true  God,  and  to 
obey  and  love  Him  as  our  Father,  and  to  try 
to  become  children  worthy  of  Him,  created  in 
His  own  image,  is  the  gist  of  the  whole  teach- 
ing of  Christianity. 

If  God  is  our  Father  then  we  are  all 
brothers  and  sisters  of  each  other,  no  matter 
to  what  race  or  country  or  people  we  belong. 
And  if  we  are  really  brothers  and  sisters,  why 
should  we  not  love  one  another  and  live  in 
perfect  peace. 

Now,  my  friends,  these  two  great  truths — 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of 
Man — are  the  two  foundation  stones  on  which 
the  Christian  religion  is  built.  Jesus  said, 
when  He  was  asked,  "  Which  is  the  greatest 
commandment   of   the   law?"      "Thou   shalt 


64*      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind  and 
with  all  thy  strength.  This  is  the  great  and 
first  commandment ;  and  the  second  is  like  unto 
it;  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 
Do  you  not  see  now  that,  if  the  entire  world 
would  believe  in  the  Christian  religion  and 
obey  our  Lord's  commandments,  as  given  to  us 
by  Jesus  Christ,  its  condition  would  be  en- 
tirely changed  and  peace  and  happiness  and 
righteousness  and  justice  would  reign  all  over 
the  world? 


*'\f£^C^ 


PART  II 
CONCERNING  SIN 


WHAT  IS  SIN? 

NOW   we  come  to  the  second  great  point 
of  my  sermon.    The  first  was  on  God. 
The  second  is  on  sin,  which  is  enmity 
to  God. 

Christianity  teaches  that  we  all  are  sinners, 
men,  women  and  children.  No  human  being 
is  sinless  in  this  world.  "  There  is  none  good, 
no  not  one."  When  we  preach  such  a  doctrine 
to  our  people  some  object  to  it  at  once,  saying: 
"Am  I  a  sinner?  What  have  I  done?  On 
what  evidence  do  you  call  me  a  sinner  or  a 
criminal?  I  have  done  nothing  of  the  kind  in 
my  life.  Why  do  you  call  me  by  such  an 
awful  name  as  a  sinner  or  a  criminal?  It's 
outrageous.  These  preachers  are  always  say- 
ing sin,  sin,  sin,  just  as  if  they  were  prison 
officials  talking  to  the  convicts.  This  talking 
about  sin  is  one  thing  I  always  disliked  in 
Christian  preaching  and  I  do  hate  to  hear  it. 
They  look  down  upon  us  from  that  high  pulpit 
as  if  we  were  criminals  brought  before  the 
judge.    Therefore,  I  don't  like  to  attend  Chris- 


67 


08      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

I  have  oftentimes  offended  many  persons  in 
this  way,  by  telling  them  they  are  sinners,  be- 
cause they  misunderstood  the  meaning  of  sin. 
They  thought  I  was  charging  them  with  some 
awful  crime,  and  naturally  would  be  offended. 
Even  tonight  if  I  should  say  from  this  plat- 
form that  you  are  all  criminals,  thieves,  mur- 
derers, and  so  on,  would  you  not  be  offended 
at  my  words?  Yes,  indeed,  you  would  be  of- 
fended, and  some  of  you  might  jump  up  here 
and  knock  me  down  for  saying  such  dreadful 
things.  And  I  should  deserve  it  if  I  insulted 
you  with  such  charges.  But,  please  do  not 
misunderstand  me  when  I  say  you  are  all  sin- 
ners. I  do  not  think  there  are  any  thieves  or 
murderers  present  in  this  audience.  But  what 
is  theft  and  murder?  Are  they  not  offences 
against  the  law  of  this  country?  Of  course 
there  are  no  such  lawbreakers  in  this  congre- 
gation. The  lawbreakers  do  not  wear  such 
clothing  as  you  and  I  do ;  they  wear  a  prison 
uniform,  as  you  know,  and  as  I  do  not  see  any 
such  uniforms  here  I  am  sure  there  is  not  a 
single  criminal  in  this  audience  tonight. 

But  what  I  am  speaking  of  here  is  not  such 
crimes  or  offences  against  our  state  laws.  Of 
course  those  crimes  are  included  in  the  general 
designation  of  sin.  But  they  form  a  very 
small  part  of  it. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION         69 

Sin  in  its  broad  and  true  sense  is  an  offence 
against  the  law  of  God.  As  every  well-gov- 
erned country  has  laws  of  its  own,  so  this  uni- 
verse has  laws  of  its  own.  And  what  Chris- 
tianity teaches  as  sin  is  the  breaking  of  the  law 
of  the  universe.  An  offence  against  the  law  of 
a  country  is  different  from  an  offence  against 
the  law  of  God.  Because  God's  laws  and  state 
laws  are  entirely  different.  May  I  tell  you  the 
difference  between  these  two  kinds  of  laws? 

EGG   AND   CHICKEN 

Take  for  example  the  case  of  murder. 
What  is  written  in  the  laws  of  the  state? 

"  Whoever  kills  a  man  is  a  murderer." 

But  the  law  of  God  says,  "  Whoever  hates 
his  brother  is  a  murderer." 

Do  you  not  see  the  great  difference  between 
these  two  laws  ? 

One  refers  to  the  actual  killing  of  a  man, 
the  other  takes  the  simple  hating  as  murder. 
A  great  difference  indeed !  But,  do  you  know 
why  hating  men  is  counted  as  murder  in  the 
law  of  God?  I  will  tell  you  the  reason.  Why 
do  men  kill  their  fellowmen?  Do  they  kill 
them  simply  for  fun?  No,  indeed.  They 
kill  because  they  hate.  Hating  comes  before 
killing.  Do  you  see  that  hating  is  the  cause  of 
killing?    If  you  hate  a  man  intensely  and  your 


70      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

feeling  oversteps  a  certain  point,  then  the 
kilHng  comes  as  the  result.  Thus,  you  see, 
hatred  is  the  cause  and  murder  is  the  effect. 
In  order  to  make  the  point  clearer  I  will  give 
an  illustration. 

Hatred  might  be  compared  to  an  egg^  while 
murder  is  the  chicken  coming  out  of  that  Qgg. 
Chickens  come  out  of  eggs.  But  can  you  see 
the  chicken  in  the  Qgg?  Do  you  see  any  jump- 
ing bird  within  the  round  shell  of  an  Qgg?  No, 
nothing.  H  you  break  an  Qgg  you  can  only 
find  the  yolk  and  white — that  is  all,  nothing 
more.  But  if  you  give  that  egg  to  a  hen  and 
let  her  sit  over  it  a  certain  length  of  time  a 
little  chick  will  come  out  of  it. 

When  you  want  chickens  to  come  out  of 
eggs  you  do  not  put  the  chick  into  the  egg  be- 
forehand, as  jugglers  do  when  they  bring 
pigeons  out  from  an  empty  box.  To  bring  out 
chicks  from  eggs  you  do  not  need  such  tricks. 
Who  ever  put  a  chicken  into  an  egg  in  order  to 
bring  it  out?  No  one  would  think  of  making 
such  a  foolish  attempt.  Just  lay  the  egg  under 
a  hen  long  enough  and  the  chick  will  come  out 
beautifully  and  naturally. 

Now,  as  the  result  of  this  reasoning  we 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  from  the  first  there 
must  have  been  a  chicken  in  the  egg.  Other- 
wise it  could  not  have  come  out  although  you 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        71 

may  have  kept  the  egg  warm  ever  so  long.  It 
is  an  unchangeable  law  of  nature — something 
can  not  come  out  of  nothing.  Certainly  there 
was  a  chicken  in  the  egg  from  the  beginning, 
though  we  could  not  see  it  with  our  bodily 
eyes.  The  egg  contains  within  itself  all  the 
elements  required  to  form  the  chicken. 

I  said  that  hating  is  an  egg  from  which  the 
bird  of  murder  will  hatch  out.  Try  it  now  by 
setting  this  egg  of  hatred — not  under  a  hen  but 
in  your  own  heart,  and  see  whether  the  bird  of 
murder  will  hatch  out  or  not.  I  do  not  see  any 
birds  of  murder  flying  among  us  tonight;  but 
are  there  not  eggs  of  murder  among  us  ?  Have 
you  not  these  eggs  in  your  hearts,  which,  if 
hatched,  will  surely  bring  forth  murder  ? 

Well  then,  I  will  ask  you  another  question. 
Have  you  never  hated  any  one  in  your  life- 
time? Have  you  never  had  any  feeling  of 
jealousy  or  envy  ?  Have  you  never  been  angry 
with  other  people  since  you  were  born  into 
this  world?  I  am  afraid  there  may  be  some 
here  who  have  been  guilty  of  such  sins  this 
very  day.  I  am  afraid  there  may  be  some 
young  people  here  who  have  been  fighting  or 
knocking  down  other  fellows — since  this  very 
morning. 

Perhaps  some  women  have  said,  "  Oh,  yes, 
men    might    have    such    dreadful    things    as 


72      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

the  eggs  of  murder  in  their  hearts,  but  we 
women  do  not  shelter  such  things  in  our 
hearts." 

But,  ladies,  I  am  sorry  to  say  you  also  have 
such  eggs  and  germs  of  sin  in  your  hearts.  I 
am  afraid  that  there  may  be  more  of  these 
germs  and  eggs  of  evil  in  women's  hearts  than 
in  men's  hearts. 

Do  you  not  know  it  is  always  women  who 
do  Mshinotokimairi?  That  is,  who  go  at  mid- 
night with  burning  candles  upon  their  heads  to 
the  shrine  of  certain  gods,  praying  to  them  to 
kill  those  people  whom  they  hate?  Is  it  not 
our  old  mothers-in-law  who  treat  young  brides 
so  unkindly,  even  cruelly  ?  Is  it  not  a  fact  that 
we  find  unkind  natures  more  often  among 
women  than  among  men?  I  am  afraid  these 
eggs  are  more  plentiful  in  women's  hearts  than 
in  men's. 

But  not  women  alone,  men  and  women  all 
have  these  eggs  and  germs  of  evil,  keep  them 
warm  a  little  while,  and  the  evil  birds  will  fly 
out  suddenly  from  their  hearts. 

I  confess  I  also  have  these  eggs.  But  mine 
have  been  kept  in  my  heart  only  as  eggs,  with- 
out being  hatched,  because  I  have  not  yet  had 
occasion  to  keep  them  warm.  I  have  not  yet 
had  such  hard  experiences  in  my  own  life  as  to 
hatch  these  eggs.     If  I  had  had  such  experi- 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        73 

ences  perhaps  from  my  own  heart  the  birds  of 
hate  would  have  flown  out  before  this.  I  say 
therefore  that  nothing  on  earth  is  so  danger- 
ous as  the  secret  evil  thoughts  of  the  human 
heart. 

INSUFFICIENCY   OF   THE   STATE  LAW 

In  the  human  heart  we  find  not  only  eggs 
of  murder  but  hundreds  of  other  kinds  of  eggs 
— eggs  of  stealing,  eggs  of  adultery,  etc.  Why 
do  men  steal  ?  Do  they  steal  for  fun  ?  They 
steal  because  they  covet  other  people's  prop- 
erty. If  they  did  not  covet  they  would  not 
steal.  Therefore,  coveting  is  an  Ggg  of  steal- 
ing. Don't  you  see  it  ?  You  see  how  plenteous 
are  the  eggs  of  stealing  among  us. 

The  state  law  says,  "  One  who  violates  a 
woman  should  be  condemned  as  guilty  of  adul- 
tery." But  God's  law  says,  "  One  who  har- 
bours an  impure  thought  toward  a  woman 
should  be  condemned  as  guilty  of  adultery." 
The  law  looks  at  the  outward  conduct — the 
bird,  while  God  looks  at  the  inner  thought — ■ 
the  egg. 

Policemen  are  bird-catchers.  What  do  you 
think  policemen  are  doing  day  and  night?  Are 
they  not  trying  to  catch  these  birds  of  evil? 
When  a  thief  or  a  murderer  is  at  large  the 
people  call  for  the  police  to  go  after  him  and 


74      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

catch  him.  But  it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to 
catch  a  bird.  They  have  wings,  you  know.  I 
can  not  catch  even  a  sparrow.  If  I  run  after 
him  he  will  fly  away.  It  must  be  very  hard 
too  for  the  police  to  catch  these  other  birds. 
Murderers  and  robbers  are  not  easy  to  catch. 
Sometimes  a  policeman  has  to  fight  with  them 
at  the  risk  of  his  life.  But  how  is  it  that  al- 
though our  policemen  work  hard  and  faith- 
fully to  catch  these  birds,  the  number  of  thieves 
and  other  criminals  is  not  decreasing,  but 
rather  increasing? 

You  know  our  poem  about  the  impossibility 
of  exterminating  the  criminals  of  the  country 
— "Though  the  sands  of  the  seashore  might 
some  day  be  exhausted,  yet  the  seeds  of  thieves 
and  robbers  will  never  be  exhausted."  Why  is 
this  ?  Because  though  the  police  might  kill  the 
birds  they  can  never  smash  the  eggs ;  and  while 
they  are  trying  to  kill  one  bird  hundreds  of 
eggs  are  being  laid  and  birds  are  constantly 
being  hatched,  which  the  police  can  not  pre- 
vent. 

If  I  should  take  somebody's  watch  the  police 
will  at  once  arrest  me  as  a  thief,  because  the 
bird  has  been  hatched  and  flown  out  of  its  tgg. 
But  if  instead  of  taking  the  watch  I  am  simply 
coveting  that  of  another  man,  and  so  laying 
eggs  of  stealing,  as  long  as  these  criminal  de- 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        75 

sires  lie  in  my  heart  simply  as  eggs  no  police- 
man can  lay  his  hands  upon  me. 

If  I  should  kill  a  man  of  course  I  would  be 
arrested  at  once  as  a  murderer.  But  as  long 
as  I  am  simply  harbouring  hatred  and  evil 
intentions  toward  another  person,  and  not  ac- 
tually committing  murder,  though  ten  thou- 
sand police  might  surround  me  they  could  do 
nothing.  No,  the  state  laws  can  never  smash 
a  single  egg.  They  are  perfectly  powerless 
against  these  eggs  and  germs  of  evil. 

Now  I  say  that  although  you  might  make 
your  state  laws  ever  so  strict  and  ever  so  per- 
fect yet  you  can  never  clear  the  country  of 
these  criminals  by  state  laws  alone.  Because 
they  can  not  smash  the  eggs.  Then,  by  what 
law  can  we  smash  these  eggs?  Only  by  the 
law  of  God.  State  laws  can  catch  the  bird — 
sometimes,  but  God's  law  alone  can  smash  the 
eggs. 

Now,  my  friends,  Christianity  teaches  this 
law  of  God.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  Christian 
religion  to  smash  all  these  evil  eggs,  for  if 
you  smash  the  eggs  then  no  more  evil  birds 
can  be  hatched.  If  the  birds  are  hatched  out, 
of  course  the  state  law  must  catch  them;  but 
if  eggs  of  evil  are  laid  in  the  human  heart 
Christianity  must  crush  them  by  the  law  of 
God.     So  you  see  these  two  kinds  of  laws 


76      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

must  work  together  to  clear  the  country  of  all 
these  sins  and  crimes. 

Viewing  sin  from  this  standpoint  I  believe  I 
have  convinced  you  that  sin  is  universal  in  this 
world.  I  do  not  think  any  one  can  say  now, 
"  I  am  not  a  sinner,'*  or  "  I  have  no  such  eggs 
of  sin  in  my  heart,"  or  "  I  am  perfectly  free 
from  all  such  imperfections." 

But  I  say  every  man  is  a  sinner  because  he 
harbours  these  eggs  or  germs  of  evil  in  his 
mind.  I  am  speaking  about  sin  with  reserve. 
If  I  were  to  go  on  and  speak  about  sin  more 
freely  I  would  say  that  we  have  not  the  eggs 
only,  but  that  we  have  the  birds  too.  Our 
country  is  full  of  these  birds.  Can't  you  see 
them — the  dreadful  birds  of  adultery,  theft, 
murder,  etc.,  flying  all  over  the  country?  How 
numerous  they  are ! 

THE   SIN    OF   ADULTERY 

Let  me  mention  a  few  of  the  conspicuous 
ones  flying  around  us  at  the  present  time.  I 
will  take  first  the  sin  of  adultery.  What  about 
this  sin?  Do  men  simply  look  at  women  with 
evil  and  impure  desires?  Is  that  the  extent 
of  the  sin  of  adultery  in  this  country?  Look 
at  these  impure  women  who  are  called  prosti- 
tutes, dancing  girls  and  waitresses.  Who  are 
they?    What  are  they  doing?    I  am  ashamed 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        77 

even  to  speak  of  them  in  such  a  respectable 
audience  as  this;  but  I  can  not  help  it.  I  must 
say  they  are  women  who  are  selling  their 
virtue.  They  are  the  very  instruments  of  the 
sin  of  adultery.  They  are  the  ones  who  are 
defiling  our  whole  community.  They  are 
dragging  down  our  young  people  into  the 
depths  of  impurity.  They  are  the  very  ones 
who  are  breaking  the  hearts  of  mothers  and 
wives  and  destroying  the  happiness  and  sacred- 
ness  of  homes  all  over  our  country.  No  plague 
is  so  pernicious  and  destructive  as  the  plague 
of  prostitution,  which  is  not  only  defiling  our 
young  people  but  the  whole  community,  old 
and  young,  high  and  low,  educated  and  unedu- 
cated. What  social  gathering  or  what  social 
dinners  are  there  in  this  country  where  these 
women  are  not  invited  and  made  to  sing  and 
dance  and  do  all  kinds  of  improper  entertain- 
ment? And  you  know  because  of  the  presence 
of  these  impure  women  our  respected  and  hon- 
oured ladies  can  not  take  part  in  such  social 
gatherings.  If  men  who  are  in  high  places  do 
such  things  how  can  the  young  people  help 
imitating  them?  Fathers  set  bad  examples  to 
their  sons  by  freely  mingling  with  these  bad 
women. 

Many  men  keep  these  women  as  concubines, 
not  only  secretly,  but  sometimes  openly  and 


78      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

brazenly  in  their  own  homes,  under  the  same 
roof  with  their  wives  and  children.  All  the 
sacredness  of  our  homes  and  the  purity  of 
sexual  relations  are  being  destroyed  by  the 
presence  of  these  evil  women  in  the  country. 
I  have  heard  that  at  the  present  time  there  are 
several  hundred  thousand  of  these  women  in 
our  country  of  Japan  and  it  is  said  the  number 
is  increasing.  I  feel  that  it  is  high  time  for 
the  patriots  of  this  land  who  have  the  welfare 
of  this  nation  at  heart,  to  stand  up  and  stem 
this  tide  of  iniquity.  It  is  the  duty  of  our 
statesmen  and  politicians  who  care  for  the  real 
and  true  honour  and  prosperity  of  this  nation 
to  bestir  themselves  and  put  an  end  to  such 
disgraceful  and  wicked  institutions. 

But  I  appeal  especially  to  our  women  to 
rouse  themselves  and  start  a  crusade  against 
these  wretched  brothels.  It  lies  in  their  hands 
and  in  their  power  to  stop  these  wicked  prac- 
tices, if  they  are  sufficiently  awakened  to  their 
duty  and  their  responsibility. 

I  know  that  our  Y.W.C.A.  and  W.C.T.U. 
and  the  Purity  Society  are  all  doing  very  good 
work.  We  are  very  grateful  for  their  excel- 
lent service.  But,  if  I  may  express  my  opinion 
a  little  more  freely,  I  am  not  yet  satisfied  with 
them.  I  don't  think  they  are  yet  determined 
enough  to  accomplish  their  end.    They  are  not 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        79 

yet  earnest  enough  to  stake  their  lives  upon  the 
accomplishment  of  this  great  work  for  the 
purification  of  society. 

Now,  my  friends,  unless  the  social  relations 
of  our  countrymen  and  countrywomen  are 
thoroughly  cleansed  it  is  impossible  to  have  a 
clean  nation.  We  all  know  that  a  nation  is 
founded  upon  its  homes,  and  homes  are 
founded  upon  the  relation  of  husbands  and 
wives.  If  this  relation  is  defiled,  as  at  the 
present  time,  how  can  you  expect  to  have  clean 
homes?  If  you  have  not  clean  homes,  how  can 
you  raise  clean  children?  If  you  can  not  bring 
up  clean  children  how  can  you  expect  to  have 
a  clean  and  wholesome  people  ?  And  without  a 
clean  and  virtuous  people  how  can  you  have  a 
clean  and  great  nation? 

THE  SIN   OF   STEALING 

How  about  stealing?  Do  you  call  those  only 
thieves  who  break  into  houses  in  the  stillness 
of  the  night  and  carry  off  money  or  jewelry 
or  clothing?  Yes,  they  are  thieves,  but  they 
are  not  the  only  thieves.  They  might  be  called 
petty  thieves.  Big  thieves  do  not  act  in  such 
an  awkward  manner.  They  do  it  in  a  very 
fine  style — often  dressed  in  a  swallow-tailed 
coat  and  silk  hat,  with  decorations  on  their 


80      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

breasts — and  they  steal  in  the  broad  light  of 
day. 

Do  you  not  know  that  we  have  had  such 
cases  of  robbery  in  the  House  of  Commons 
as  well  as  among  the  high  government  of- 
ficials? Have  we  not  had  such  cases  also 
among  the  officers  of  banks  and  corporations? 
And  are  not  some  of  them  still  confined  in  the 
state  prison?  Worst  of  all,  we  have  heard  of 
such  cases  of  robbery  even  among  the  shaven- 
headed  priests  of  certain  religious  orders. 

When  I  was  travelling  in  the  southern  sec- 
tion of  the  country  I  was  astonished  to  hear 
it  reported  that  some  three  hundred  students 
of  a  government  middle  school  had  banded 
themselves  together  and  had  stolen  $1,750 
worth  of  books  from  a  bookstore  in  the  town 
where  this  school  is  situated.  Think  of  it — 
students  of  a  middle  school,  whom  we  expect 
to  be  the  very  backbone  of  our  nation,  have 
turned  out  to  be  thieves.  A  dreadful  thing  in- 
deed. But  I  mention  only  the  cases  reported 
in  the  newspapers.  If  all  cases  of  robbery 
among  our  people  were  reported  in  these  news- 
papers I  doubt  if  the  papers  would  have  space 
enough  to  print  them. 

The  country  is  full  of  thieves.  In  the  state 
prisons  at  the  present  time  I  hear  there  are 
seventy  thousand  thieves  in  prison  garb.     But 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        81 

outside  of  the  prisons  there  are  many  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  a  worse  kind  of  thieves, 
wearing  ordinary  clothes.  Yes,  the  big  birds 
of  this  kind  are  flying  all  over  the  country. 

THE   SIN   OF   MURDER 

What,  then,  about  the  sin  of  murder?  Shall 
we  count  as  murderers  only  those  who  take 
away  a  man's  life  by  the  sword  or  the  gun? 
Are  there  not  other  ways  of  killing  besides 
that?  Yes,  there  are.  There  are  a  thousand 
ways  of  committing  murder. 

I  will  tell  you  of  one — a  most  heinous  way 
of  murder,  which  is  very  little  noticed  by  the 
public.  A  profligate  son  may  squander  his 
father's  money,  spending  it  on  drinking  and 
bad  women,  and  finally  using  up  all  his  fam- 
ily's property  and  destroying  his  own  health 
and  honour,  thus  forfeiting  the  respect  of  so- 
ciety, he  finally  sinks  into  the  depths  of  misery 
and  dishonour.  Now,  how  do  you  suppose  his 
parents  feel  about  this?  Why,  the  father's 
hair  turns  grey  early,  and  the  mother  has  un- 
timely wrinkles  in  her  face.  What  do  these 
changes  signify?  Simply  that  these  parents' 
lives  have  been  shortened  by  the  wicked  con- 
duct of  their  unfilial  son,  perhaps  shortened 
by  five  or  ten  years.  They  may  go  down  to 
their  graves  so  many  years  earlier  than  they 


82      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

would  have  gone  but  for  this  ungrateful  son. 
God  might  have  given  them  seventy  years  to 
live  on  this  earth,  yet  they  have  been  cut  off 
at  sixty-five.  Is  not  the  sending  of  his  parents 
so  much  earlier  to  their  graves  by  his  wicked 
conduct  as  bad  as  putting  an  end  to  their  lives 
with  his  own  hand  ?  Yes,  indeed !  It  is  a  case 
of  parricide.  He  has  murdered  his  father  and 
mother  at  the  age  of  sixty-five. 

And  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  there  are  many 
cases  of  this  kind  of  parricide  in  our  country. 
How  many  fathers  and  mothers  are  going 
down  to  an  early  grave  broken-hearted  on  ac- 
count of  the  misconduct  of  their  children? 
Have  you  not  such  cases  in  your  own  town  and 
village?  You  know,  all  our  children  are 
taught  in  school  that  being  filial  to  their 
parents  is  the  first  duty  of  man.  So  they  must 
all  know  that.  But,  alas !  All  school  teaching 
enters  the  one  ear  and  out  the  other.  As  soon 
as  school  days  are  over  most  of  its  teaching  is 
forgotten.  Our  schools  fail  to  produce  a  last- 
ing effect  with  their  ethical  teaching. 

PARTIALITY  OF  THE  HEATHEN  MORAL 
TEACHINGS 

I  must  say  that  while  I  am  condemning  the 
misconduct  of  our  children  toward  their 
parents  in  such  severe  terms,  at  the  same  time 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        83 

I  must  not  forget  the  other  side  of  the  case 
— the  misconduct  of  the  parents  toward  the 
children.  I  must  not  blame  the  children  only 
and  leave  out  the  parents  entirely.  I  must  not 
be  partial. 

I  think  on  this  point  of  the  relations  be- 
tween parents  and  children  our  moral  teach- 
ings are  very  partial  and  one-sided,  and  there- 
fore very  defective.  While  they  lay  great 
stress  on  the  duty  of  children  toward  their 
parents,  they  do  not  lay  sufficient  stress  on  the 
duty  of  parents  toward  their  children.  They 
condemn  the  least  infraction  of  the  obligation 
of  the  children,  but  they  overlook  any  failure 
on  the  part  of  the  parents. 

If  there  are  cases  of  parricide  among  our 
children,  there  are  also  grievous  cases  of  in- 
fanticide among  parents.  Parents  murdering 
their  children.  Are  there  not  cases  of  abor- 
tion, and  even  of  suffocation  of  newborn 
babes?  Are  these  not  acts  of  murder?  Yes, 
they  are.  Mothers  and  fathers  are  doing  these 
things.  Of  course  those  who  commit  such 
awful  crimes  are  guilty  of  infanticide  and  are 
liable  to  be  punished  by  the  law  of  the  state. 

There  are  other  cases  of  child-murder 
which,  though  not  liable  to  punishment  under 
the  state  law,  are  yet  very  wicked.  I  refer  to 
the  selling  of  girls  by  their  parents  to  houses 


84      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

of  ill-fame.  Of  course  it  is  not  legal  to  sell 
these  girls,  but  many  girls  are  sent  to  those 
bad  houses  for  the  sake  of  the  money  their 
parents  will  receive. 

We  have  a  familiar  saying  that  girls  who  are 
sold  to  these  houses  are  thrown  into  a  dirty^ 
ditch  from  which  they  can  never  come  back 
clean.  They  become  outcasts  of  society.  Most 
of  them  contract  venereal  diseases  and  soon 
die.  Their  lives  are  thus  shortened  by  enter- 
ing these  awful  places.  Yes,  such  places  are 
hell  for  these  poor  girls.  They  are  doomed  for 
life.  And  you  see  their  own  parents,  fathers 
and  mothers,  having  thrown  their  girls  into 
this  filthy  ditch,  drink  and  gamble  with  the 
money  received  from  the  sale  of  their  chil- 
dren. Don't  you  think  that  these  wicked  men 
and  women  really  murder  their  unfortunate 
daughters?    Yes,  they  do. 

Do  you  think  that  these  parents  have  still  a 
fatherly  and  motherly  feeling  for  their  chil- 
dren whom  they  treat  thus  ?  Can  you  still  call 
them  by  the  name  of  parents?  I  can  not. 
They  have  no  right  to  such  an  honourable  title 
as  that  of  parents.  I  would  rather  call  them 
devils,  feasting  upon  the  very  flesh  and  blood 
of  these  unfortunate  human  creatures. 

I  am  ashamed  to  say  that  our  public  does 
not  take  much  notice  of  the  wicked  conduct  of 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        85 

these  parents,  and  our  government  still  allows 
such  heinous  crimes.  Not  only  that,  but  even 
religious  and  moral  teachers  (I  mean  heathen 
priests  and  so-called  moral  teachers)  side  with 
these  parents  and  teach  that  it  is  the  filial  duty 
of  these  daughters  to  obey  their  parents'  will 
and  fulfil  their  wishes. 

MURDER  AND   INTEMPERANCE 

I  must  mention  one  more  kind  of  murder, 
which  is  by  drink.  Intoxicating  drinks  do  de- 
stroy human  lives.  Are  not  drunkards  break- 
ing the  hearts  of  their  wives,  their  mothers 
and  their  children?  Yes,  they  are.  They  are 
bringing  their  dearest  ones  to  untimely 
graves.  Yes,  they  are  murdering  them.  Not 
only  their  nearest  and  dearest,  but  themselves. 
How  many  drunkards  are  going  down  to  early 
graves?  They  are  committing  suicide.  Then 
how  dreadful  is  the  business  of  manufacturing 
and  selling  this  destroyer  of  life,  and  devastat- 
ing the  whole  country  with  such  poisons. 

I  always  look  upon  drink  as  my  deadly 
enemy,  because  it  killed  my  father.  He  died 
quite  young  because  of  drink.  Therefore  in- 
toxicating drink  is  my  deadly  enemy  with 
whom  I  can  not  bear  to  live  under  the  same 
heaven.  I  am  determined  to  take  revenge  on 
my  father's  murderer. 


86      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

Perhaps  even  in  this  audience  there  may  be 
some  one  who  can  say  with  me — Drink  was 
my  father's  murderer — or  my  husband's  mur- 
derer. In  one  place  when  I  said  this  a  woman 
cried  out :  "  Oh,  yes,  drink  is  my  son's  mur- 
derer.   My  son  died  of  that  awful  poison." 

I  know  one  case  of  drink  killing  thirty-six 
persons  at  one  stroke.  Perhaps  you  remember 
the  dreadful  news  reported  through  the  news- 
papers a  few  years  ago.  In  one  of  the  north- 
ern railroad  stations  the  assistant  station 
master  killed  thirty-six  passengers  because  of 
drink.  He  got  drunk  while  he  was  on  duty 
and  entirely  forgot  the  coming  of  a  special 
train,  so  two  trains  collided,  resulting  in  the 
instant  death  of  thirty-six  passengers. 

Drink  not  only  destroys  human  life  but  also 
destroys  homes  and  property,  and  so  devastates 
the  whole  country.  It  is  indeed  the  most 
dreadful  enemy  of  mankind.  The  world  must 
get  rid  of  it.  I  hope  our  temperance  societies 
will  bestir  themselves  now  and  do  their  utmost 
toward  destroying  this  enemy  of  mankind.  I 
know  they  are  doing  good  work,  but  not 
enough.  Look  at  America.  What  a  wonder- 
ful thing  those  American  temperance  societies 
have  done.  Think  of  it.  A  nation  of  one 
hundred  million  people  throwing  away  intoxi- 
cating liquors  entirely  and  becoming  dry  all 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        87 

over  the  country!  Its  effect  upon  the  health, 
weahh  and  morals  of  the  people  is  inestimable. 

You  know  in  our  country  more  than  one- 
tenth  of  the  whole  rice  crop  is  turned  into  in- 
toxicating drinks.  In  these  days  of  the 
scarcity  of  rice,  when  people  are  complaining 
of  the  lack  of  food,  one-tenth  of  the  principal 
food  of  the  people  is  taken  away  from  them 
for  the  purpose  of  brewing  poisonous  liquors. 
What  a  shameful  thing  this  is  to  our  country. 

Now  you  see  there  are  not  only  eggs  of  sin 
in  the  hearts  of  men,  but  big  birds  flying  in 
the  air  all  over  the  country.  The  world  at 
present  is  full  of  sin.  We  find  sins  right  and 
left  all  over  the  world.  Every  man  is  full  of 
sin  from  head  to  foot.  No,  there  is  no  sin- 
less man  on  the  whole  earth,  not  even  one. 

THE  FRONT  GATE  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

But  here,  some  one  may  object,  "  Oh,  see 
here,  that  preacher,  standing  on  that  high  plat- 
form and  looking  down  upon  us,  is  upbraiding 
us  as  miserable  sinners,  and  is  perhaps  think- 
ing of  himself  as  a  good  man."  ^ 

No,  my  friends,  I  am  not  upbraiding  you 
alone  as  being  miserable  sinners.  I  know  I  am 
also  a  miserable  sinner.  Perhaps  I  am  the 
chief  of  sinners.  Don't  you  know  that  we 
Christians  do  not  hold  a  mirror  facing  toward 


88      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

others  but  toward  ourselves?  If  you  should 
hold  a  mirror  facing  toward  other  people  you 
can  see  their  faces  reflected  in  the  mirror  and 
then  you  are  tempted  to  make  comments  upon 
them,  saying,  "  That  man's  face  is  a  little  too 
long,"  and  "This  man's  face  is  a  little  too 
round,"  and  so  on.  But  if  you  hold  up  your 
mirror  with  its  face  toward  yourself  alone 
then  you  can  see  your  own  face  reflected  in  the 
mirror.  I  confess  now  that  before  I  became  a 
Christian  I  thought  I  was  a  good  man,  per- 
haps better  than  the  most  of  my  fellowmen.  I 
had  not  yet  violated  any  of  the  laws  of  our 
country.  I  had  not  done  injustice  to  any  man. 
I  had  not  defrauded  any  person.  I  had  not 
been  disobedient  to  my  parents.  I  had  brought 
up  my  children  in  decency  and  order.  In  fact 
I  had  done  nothing  yet  worthy  of  condemna- 
tion.   So  I  thought  I  was  a  good  man. 

But  when  I  became  a  Christian  and  held 
the  mirror  right  before  my  face,  and  saw  my 
own  figure  reflected  in  it,  from  head  to  foot, 
then  I  said,  "  Oh,  what  a  wretched  sinner  I 
am ! "  I  have  seen  sins  of  all  kinds  reflected 
from  my  own  life  in  that  mirror,  eggs  and 
birds,  of  which  I  was  not  at  all  conscious  be- 
fore. Yes,  I  found  myself  to  be  the  greatest 
of  all  sinners. 

Now,  my  friends,  tonight  I  am  not  blaming 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        89 

you  for  anything.  I  am  not  upbraiding  you  at 
all.  I  can  not  do  that.  Because  I  do  not  know 
you  personally.  I  do  not  know  your  past  his- 
tory nor  your  present  condition.  I  only  see 
your  faces  now  for  the  first  time.  How  can 
I  reprove  you?  No,  no,  I  do  not  try  to  do 
anything  of  that  kind  tonight.  But  this  one 
thing  I  beg  you  to  do— to  take  up  this  mirror 
of  God  and  turn  it  toward  your  own  face  and 
see  what  kind  of  men  you  are.  Do  you  think 
that  you  will  find  the  figures  of  saints,  or 
angels  of  heaven  reflected  in  that  mirror? 

No,  my  friends,  I  am  afraid  you  will  find 
instead  the  figures  of  black  devils — the  great- 
est of  sinners.  Then  you  will  surely  cry  out, 
"  Oh,  wretched  man  that  I  am !  Who  shall  de- 
liver me  from  the  body  of  this  death." 

I  tell  you  this  finding  out  of  your  own  sins, 
and  crying  out  for  the  way  of  salvation  from 
them,  is  indeed  the  front  gate  to  the  religion 
of  Christ.  If  you  are  at  all  truly  desirous  of 
entering  into  this  religion  of  Christ  you  must 
come  to  the  front  gate.  You  must  not  climb 
over  the  fence  or  break  through  the  hedge  to 
enter  into  this  religion.  There  are  many 
among  our  own  countr3/men  who  are  trying  to 
enter  the  Christian  religion  through  these 
fences  and  hedges,  saying,  "  Oh,  yes,  Chris- 
tianity is  good  for  the  country,  for  the  people, 


90      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

for  the  family,  for  the  home,  for  the  wives 
and  the  children,  so  I  will  accept  this  religion 
as  my  own.*' 

Very  well,  it  is  all  true  that  Christianity  is 
good  for  the  country  and  the  people;  but  you 
can  never  enter  into  that  religion  by  such  a 
roundabout  way  of  belief.  Yes,  your  country, 
your  family,  your  wives  and  your  children  may 
enter  into  the  Christian  religion  if  you  en- 
courage them  to  do  so,  because  it  is  good  for 
them  to  do  it ;  but  you  yourself  can  never  enter 
into  that  religion  by  such  a  superficial  belief. 
If  you  really  wish  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom 
of  God  yourself  you  must  come  to  its  front 
gate  first — that  is  acknowledgement  of  and  re- 
pentance for  your  own  sins.  Without  this  you 
can  never  enter  the  kingdom  of  God. 

WHY   IS   SIN   DREADFUL? 

I  take  it  for  granted  now  that  you  are  con- 
vinced of  your  sins.  Now  you  can  see  and 
understand  how  all  men  without  exception  are 
sinners.  But  some  one  may  say  at  this  point 
— "  All  right,  I  am  convinced  now  that  I  am  a 
sinner.  I  know  that  every  man  on  earth  is 
also  a  sinner.  What,  then,  does  it  matter  to 
us  though  we  are  all  the  blackest  of  sinners? 
Why  should  we  be  so  much  afraid  of  sin? 
Why  is  sin  such  a  dreadful  thing?    I  don't  see 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        91 

anything  dreadful.  Is  not  sin  simply  a  mis- 
deed or  shortcoming,  or  weakness  of  human 
nature  ?  Is  it  not  all  right,  even  after  commit- 
ting sin,  if  we  are  sorry  for  our  misconduct 
and  try  to  correct  it  and  reform  our  char- 
acters ?  Is  it  not  the  teaching  of  our  old  sages 
that  *  If  a  man  commit  sin  he  must  at  once  cor- 
rect it  without  hesitation/  and  that  is  all  which 
is  required  of  us  and  no  need  of  bothering  our- 
selves any  further?  If  we  only  correct  our 
misdeeds  and  reform  our  characters  all  the 
sins  we  have  committed  will  be  wiped  out  for- 
ever, just  like  an  ink  spot  from  the  face  of  a 
man,  or  a  dark  film  from  the  face  of  a  mirror." 

But  no,  my  friends,  sin  is  not  such  a  light 
thing.  Sin  is  not  like  an  ink  spot  or  dark 
film.  Such  illustrations  are  always  mislead- 
ing. You  know  illustrations  are  not  truths, — 
people  sometimes  mistake  them  for  truths, — 
but  no,  they  are  not  truths  in  themselves ;  they 
are  simply  used  to  explain  truths,  and  in  many 
cases  they  do  not  fully  explain  and  make  the 
truths  clear  to  people's  minds.  In  some  cases 
they  misinterpret  and  mislead  people.  This  il- 
lustration of  an  ink  spot  or  dark  film  for  sin 
is  a  very  good  instance  of  a  misleading  illus- 
tration. 

Sin  or  crime,  you  know,  is  a  legal  term. 
Read  now  the  law  books.    What  do  you  find 


92      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

there?  The  laws  says,  "  You  must  not  steal." 
But  what  if  you  have  already  stolen?  Does 
it  say,  "  Correct  your  misdeed  and  you  shall  be 
all  right "  ?  No,  the  law  says  at  once,  "  Such 
shall  be  punished  by  an  imprisonment  of  so 
many  years."  The  law  says  again,  "  You  must 
not  kill."  But  what  if  you  have  already  killed 
some  one?  The  law  does  not  say,  "Reform 
your  character  and  you  shall  be  free."  No;  it 
says  again,  "  You  shall  be  punished  by  death." 

Yes,  every  law  of  the  state  has  punishment 
attached  to  the  violation  of  the  law.  If  there 
is  no  punishment  then  the  law  is  powerless. 
Nobody  would  be  afraid  of  violating  the  law 
if  no  penalty  were  attached  to  its  violation. 
The  reason  people  are  so  afraid  of  breaking 
the  law  of  the  state  is  that  if  they  do  break  it 
they  will  be  punished;  no  matter  who  they 
may  be  there  is  no  respect  of  persons  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law,  although  some  lawbreakers 
may  manage  to  escape  punishment  for  a  time. 
Every  lawbreaker  must  sometime  receive  his 
due  recompense.  And  there  are  two  ways  of 
executing  the  punishment — the  police  and  the 
prisons.  If  it  were  not  for  these  two  well- 
known  means  of  executing  the  laws  of  the 
state  they  would  be  quite  powerless. 

So,  you  see,  sins  can  not  be  looked  upon  as 
such  light  things  as  some  people  would  like, 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        93 

for  they  will  surely  bring  sooner  or  later  upon 
the  offenders  a  terrible  punishment. 

heaven's  punishment 

Right  here  some  one  may  raise  another  ob- 
jection. "  All  right,  we  agree  that  the  laws  of 
the  state  have  punishment  attached  to  them, 
but  how  about  the  laws  of  heaven,  even  God's 
laws  ?  Have  they  also  punishment  attached  to 
them  ?  Does  heaven  punish  sinners  as  the  state 
punishes  its  offenders?  And  is  heaven's  pun- 
ishment as  direct  and  quick  as  the  punishment 
of  the  state?" 

Yes,  my  friends,  there  is  a  swift  and  sure 
punishment  from  God  in  this  world.  Every- 
body knows  that.  We  have  the  word  Tenbatsu 
[Heaven's  punishment]  in  our  language,  which 
has  been  in  use  from  very  old  times.  What 
does  Tenbatsu  mean?  It  means  precisely  pun- 
ishment from  heaven.  It  is  not  punishment  by 
the  state.  It  is  not  punishment  by  man.  It  is 
punishment  by  the  King  of  Heaven. 

Everybody  in  this  country  fears  that  Ten- 
batsu. And  very  often  it  comes  swiftly  and 
soon.  And  nobody  can  escape  it.  We  also 
speak  of  the  heavenly  net  whose  meshes  at 
first  sight  look  very  big,  but  on  close  examina- 
tion we  find  them  to  be  very  small,  so  that  even 
the  tiniest  fish  can  not  pass  through  them. 


94.      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

Now  all  these  sayings  establish  our  belief 
in  punishment  from  heaven  for  our  sins.  It  is 
clearly  stated  in  the  law  of  God  that  even  an 
idle  word  which  a  man  utters  on  earth  will  not 
escape  its  deserved  punishment  in  the  day  of 
judgment. 

I  must  make  a  few  remarks  about  this  pun- 
ishment from  heaven. 

If  you  regard  man  simply  as  an  earthly  crea- 
ture whose  existence  ceases  at  the  end  of  this 
life,  then  it  seems  as  if  there  are  imperfections 
in  this  punishment  from  heaven  and  much  in- 
justice. Not  always  in  this  world  are  good 
men  honoured  and  bad  men  disgraced.  Not 
always  do  honest  men  get  wealthy  and  dis- 
honest men  become  poor.  Not  always  are  the 
righteous  prosperous  and  the  wicked  unfortu- 
nate. Do  we  not  often  find  the  reverse  of  it? 
How  was  it  in  the  case  of  our  national  hero 
Kusunoki  Masashige? 

.  Though  he  was  a  good  man,  loved  and  hon- 
oured by  all  men  of  the  country,  his  family  did 
not  continue  even  for  three  generations. 
Whereas,  Ashikaga  Takauji,  the  founder  of 
the  Ashikaga  Shogunate,  whom  every  Japa- 
nese knows  to  have  been  a  bad  man,  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  have  his  descendants  for  fifteen 
generations  rulers  of  Japan.  His  family  pros- 
pered while  the  other  family  was  short-lived. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        95 

Because  of  such  instances  as  these  there  are 
many  men  who  doubt  the  existence  of  heavenly 
punishment  or  heavenly  justice. 

They  say  this  world  is  ruled  by  chance  or 
fate  and  not  by  the  wise  providence  of  God. 

Of  course  many  good  people  have  tried  to 
explain  these  seeming  injustices.  I  have  heard 
many  explanations  myself,  but  I  confess  I  am 
not  satisfied  with  them. 

As  long  as  you  regard  men  as  creatures  be- 
longing to  this  world  alone  for  whom  there  is 
no  future  life,  you  can  never  explain  this  vexed 
question.  But  I  believe  that  man  is  not  created 
for  this  world  alone.  Man  has  his  future  life 
also.  He  has  an  existence  beyond  the  grave. 
Our  earthly  life  is  simply  a  pilgrimage  to  that 
life.  We  are  simply  travellers  in  this  world. 
And  our  pilgrimage  on  this  earth  lasts  only 
fifty  or  seventy  years,  but  our  life  in  the  next 
world  is  eternal.  What  are  these  short  periods 
of  fifty  or  seventy  years  of  our  earthly  pil- 
grimage compared  with  that  eternal  life  of  the 
next  world?  Can  they  be  compared?  This 
present  life  when  it  is  passed  will  seem  like  a 
half-forgotten  dream  of  the  night. 

LIFE   IS    A   VOYAGE 

Moreover,  the  very  object  of  our  coming 
into  the  world  is  not  achieved  in  this  present 


96      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

life.  Here  we  are  simply  voyaging  to  the  next 
world  where  our  real  destinies  lie. 

Suppose  you  go  to  Yokohama  and  buy  a 
ticket  for  America  and  get  on  board  the  ship. 
It  will  take  about  twenty  days  to  cross  the 
ocean.  And  now  during  those  twenty  days 
of  your  sea  voyage  to  America  you  will  meet 
with  all  kinds  of  experiences,  good  and  bad, 
pleasant  and  unpleasant.  Some  days  you  may 
have  dancing,  music,  moving  pictures,  theatri- 
cal performances  and  various  other  enjoy- 
ments. Surely  you  will  have  a  good  time.  But 
at  the  same  time  you  must  be  prepared  to  meet 
unpleasant  experiences  too.  But  whether  good 
or  bad,  pleasant  or  unpleasant,  it  is  only  for 
the  twenty  days,  that  is  all.  When  you  get  to 
America  you  will  forget  all  these  experiences, 
or  perhaps  remember  vaguely  for  a  time. 
These  are  not  the  object  of  your  voyage.  You 
did  not  buy  your  ticket  for  America  to  enjoy 
the  ship  life.  Your  object  was  not  on  the 
boat.  What  was  your  object  in  going  to 
America  ?  Were  you  not  going  there  for  study 
or  for  business  or  on  a  visit  ?  Surely,  you  had 
some  reason  for  going  there  and  for  which  you 
made  your  sea  voyage  of  twenty  days.  The 
voyage  was  simply  a  means  to  reach  the  end 
you  had  in  view. 

So,  I  think,  our  life  on  earth  is  a  voyage. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        97 

When  we  were  born  we  all  bought  tickets  for 
our  voyage  and  entered  the  ship  of  life.  We 
are  all  on  board  the  ship  of  life  now.  Every- 
one of  us  has  a  ticket  in  his  hand  which  entitles 
him  to  the  eternal  haven  at  the  other  end  of 
this  early  life.  And  now  I  think  some  of  you 
are  already  far  out  on  the  ocean.  Perhaps 
many  of  you  have  already  gone  as  far  as 
Hawaii.  Old  folks  like  myself  may  be  almost 
within  sight  of  the  Golden  Gate.  May  be  there 
are  some  among  you  who  will  reach  your  des- 
tiny tonight.  We  can  not  tell.  We  do  not 
know  how  near  we  are  to  that  eternal  haven. 

I  see  many  young  people  here  tonight.  Per- 
haps you  may  be  saying  to  yourselves,  "  Oh 
no,  we  are  not  so  near  to  that  haven, — cer- 
tainly we  are  yet  very  far  out.  We  have 
plenty  of  years  to  live  yet  on  this  earth.  We 
need  not  yet  bother  about  our  arrival  there. 
We  are  quite  safe  for  awhile." 

But  no,  my  young  friends,  even  you  are  not 
safe.  How  many  of  our  young  people  are 
dying  now  very  early  in  life.  No,  no,  not  one 
is  safe  from  that  final  call  from  heaven. 
Maybe  the  youngest  of  my  hearers  tonight  will 
hear  that  call  before  the  next  dawn. 

Moreover,  life  is  very  short  on  this  earth. 
It  is  like  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  It  is  a 
dream  of  the  night.    When  I  was  young  I  said 


98      THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

to  myself :  "  Oh,  I  have  a  long  voyage  yet  to 
make.  I  need  not  hurry.  I  need  not  bother 
myself  about  the  future  life.  I  have  plenty  of 
time  to  deal  with  such  matters  in  the  future." 
And  now  I  am  sixty-three  years  old.  Do  not 
people  say  that  fifty  years  is  the  ordinary 
length  of  a  man's  life  here  on  earth?  Then  I 
have  passed  already  thirteen  years  beyond  the 
span  of  the  ordinary  human  life.  But  how 
quickly  it  has  passed.  How  short  it  seems  to 
me,  after  all.  When  I  look  back  upon  the 
years  of  my  life  I  feel  that  human  life  is  but 
a  dream.  When  it  is  passed  it  seems  like  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye. 

Moreover,  when  it  is  passed  it  becomes 
valueless.  Good  and  bad,  pleasant  and  un- 
pleasant, all  look  alike.  I  have  had  good  times 
as  well  as  bad  times.  I  have  had  happy 
days  as  well  as  unhappy  days.  But  when  they 
are  passed  they  become  altogether  of  no 
account. 

There  are  some  old  folks  who  are  always 
talking  about  the  past.  Their  thoughts  are 
turned  toward  the  past.  They  can  not  talk 
about  anything  but  their  past  deeds  and  past 
events,  and  their  conversation  is  not  interest- 
ing to  young  folks,  because  the  young  folks 
are  looking  ahead  while  the  old  folks  are  look- 
ing  back. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION        99 

But  the  real  joy  of  life  is  not  in  the  past;  it 
is  in  the  hope  of  the  future,  and  we  are  all 
hastening  to  that  land  of  our  hopes. 

THE   JUDGMENT   SEAT 

When  we  get  to  the  shore  of  the  other  world 
where  are  we  all  going  ?  Can  we  go  wherever 
we  wish  to  go  ?  Shall  we  still  have  freedom  of 
choice  in  selecting  our  eternal  habitation? 

No,  my  friends,  then  we  have  no  freedom. 
I  tell  you  that  there  is  but  one  place  after  death 
whither  we  must  all  go  without  a  single  ex- 
ception— and  that  is  into  the  presence  of  God. 
Every  man  when  he  reaches  the  shore  of  the 
other  world  must  appear  at  once  before  the 
judgment  seat  of  God.  This  is  not  the  result 
of  choice  but  it  is  of  necessity.  Man  may 
talk  of  liberty  and  freedom  as  much  as  he 
pleases,  but  there  are  two  points  in  human  life 
where  he  has  absolutely  no  choice.  At  both 
ends  of  this  life,  entrance  and  exit,  man  has 
absolutely  no  freedom  to  choose.  Who  on 
earth  has  ever  come  into  this  world  by  his  own 
free  choice?  And  who  again  can  choose  the 
place  to  which  he  will  go  ?  You  were  not  born 
in  this  city  of  Tokyo  by  your  own  free  choice, 
were  you  ?  You  did  not  come  into  this  world 
by  your  own  will  nor  by  the  will  of  any  man, 
but  by  the  will  of  the  Almighty  God  who  or- 


100    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

dained  you  to  be  born  into  this  world.  And, 
in  the  same  way,  you  will  not  go  out  of  this 
world  by  your  own  choice,  but  you  will  be 
taken  away  from  this  world  by  that  final  call 
from  heaven  which  no  man  on  earth  can  resist. 

Can  kings  or  emperors,  the  mighty  or  the 
wealthy  resist  this  final  call  from  heaven  a 
single  moment? 

When  you  appear  before  the  judgment  seat 
of  God  you  will  receive  your  just  recompense 
for  your  life  on  this  earth.  Then  if  you  are 
found  righteous  and  perfect  you  can  enter  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  with  joy  and  glad- 
ness. And  you  shall  enjoy  eternal  life  in  that 
land  of  perfect  peace  and  happiness. 

But  if,  on  the  contrary,  you  are  found  sin- 
ners and  transgressors  of  the  law  of  God,  you 
will  be  punished  by  being  thrown  into  eternal 
hell. 

THERE  IS  A  HELU 

I  tell  you,  my  dear  friends,  there  is  a  place 
called  hell  in  the  future  world,  where  all  the 
transgressors  of  the  law  of  God  shall  be  sent 
in  punishment  for  their  sins.  This  is  an  eter- 
nal truth  and  eternal  fact. 

I  know  there  are  many  people,  perhaps  even 
among  you  tonight,  who  say :  "  Oh,  I  do  not 
believe  that  there  is  any  such  place  as  hell  in 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       101 

the  future  world.  That  simply  exists  in  the 
imagination  of  certain  religious  people.  Such 
teachings  are  simply  used  for  moral  purposes, 
for  discouraging  evil  and  encouraging  good. 
No  intelligent  man  nowadays  believes  in  such 
things  as  hell  and  heaven  in  the  future  life. 
That  is  the  old-fashioned  way  of  thinking." 

Very  well,  if  you  do  not  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  the  future  world  I  will  not  force  that 
belief  upon  you.  Belief  can  not  be  forced  on 
any  man  by  any  means.  But  please  be  assured 
of  this,  that  whether  you  believe  it  or  not,  the 
fact  of  the  existence  of  the  future  world  will 
not  be  affected  by  your  belief  or  unbelief. 
Man's  belief  or  unbelief  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  existence  of  hell.  You  may  believe  or  dis- 
believe anything  you  please,  but  that  does  not 
change  the  fact.  The  sun  which  sets  in  the 
West  this  evening  will  surely  rise  tomorrow 
morning  in  the  East.  This  is  fact.  The  fact 
you  know  can  not  be  changed  by  your  opinion. 
You  may  dispute  and  deny  other  people's  opin- 
ions as  much  as  you  please,  but  you  can  not 
deny  the  facts.  A  fact  is  indisputable.  The 
existence  of  the  future  world  is  fact.  You 
can  not  make  or  unmake  it  by  your  simple  be- 
lief or  unbelief.  Hell  and  heaven  will  rise  be- 
fore you  when  your  soul  sinks  below  the  hori- 
zon of  this  earthly  life,  just  as  surely  as  the 


102    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

sun  will  rise  tomorrow  morning  in  the  eastern 
sky. 

Be  careful,  then,  lest  when  you  die  you  be 
thrown  into  hell,  the  existence  of  which  you 
denied  in  your  ignorance. 

Do  you  think  that  any  country  can  be  well 
governed  without  having  a  hell  in  it  ?  Do  you 
think  our  beloved  country  would  be  in  such  a 
state  of  peace  and  prosperity  if  she  had  no  hell 
within  her  limits?  What,  then,  is  this  hell  of 
our  country?  Why,  prisons  are  the  hell  of  a 
country.  Every  one  who  has  broken  the  law 
of  the  state  shall  be  thrown  into  this  hell. 
You  know  the  breaking  of  the  law  of  the  coun- 
try is  not  a  light  thing,  such  as  a  fault  or  a 
mistake  which  can  be  easily  corrected.  No, 
breaking  a  law  of  the  state  is  rebelHon  against 
the  sovereignty  of  the  country.  So  it  deserves 
the  just  recompense  of  being  thrown  into 
prison.  And  because  we  have  such  places  as 
prisons  in  our  country  we  can  enjoy  our  pres- 
ent state  of  peace  and  safety. 

Suppose  we  had  no  prisons  in  our  country. 
Every  one  could  do  just  as  he  pleased.  He 
could  kill,  he  could  steal,  or  burn  down  other 
people's  houses,  and  yet  he  could  not  be  ar- 
rested or  punished  for  his  misconduct  because 
there  would  be  no  police  to  arrest  him  and  no 
prison  to  confine  him  in.    What  would  be  the 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       103 

condition  of  such  a  lawless  country?  Do  you 
think  we  could  live  in  peace  and  safety  even  a 
single  day  in  such  a  country?  No,  no,  if  there 
is  no  hell  in  the  country  the  whole  country  will 
become  hell  itself,  and  no  one  would  want  to 
live  in  such  a  country. 

Just  so,  when  you  go  to  the  next  world,  you 
will  surely  find  a  hell  in  that  country.  Every 
one  who  has  violated  the  laws  of  that  King- 
dom in  this  world  shall  be  thrown  into  prison 
in  the  next  world.  So  that  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  shall  not  be  troubled  by  those  evil 
doers,  and  all  the  people  of  the  Kingdom  shall 
live  in  peace  and  happiness  for  ever.  All  sin- 
ners must  be  punished  by  eternal  suffering. 

Now  this  is  the  second  fundamental  truth 
of  Christianity. 


PART  III 
CONCERNING  SALVATION 


WHAT  IS  SALVATION? 

NOW  we  come  to  the  third  point,  the  last 
but  the  most  important  of  all. 
This  is  the  heart  of  Christianity. 

I  hope  you  will  be  patient  a  little  longer  and 
listen  to  me  attentively  because  this  is  the  most 
difficult  part  of  all  and  I  will  try  to  explain  it 
as  clearly  as  I  can.  You  have  seen  that  the 
first  was  on  God  and  the  second  on  sin,  and 
now  the  third  is  on  salvation. 

Salvation  is  the  saving  of  man  from  sin  and 
its  punishment.  How  can  men  be  saved  ?  By 
the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ  upon  the  cross. 
There  is  no  other  way  of  salvation.  Every 
man  must  be  saved  by  believing  in  the  power 
of  the  cross  of  Christ.  Therefore,  the  doctrine 
of  atonement  through  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
upon  the  cross  is  the  most  important  doctrine 
of  all.  If  you  can  not  fully  understand  this 
central  truth  of  Christianity  you  can  never  un- 
derstand what  Christianity  is. 

Christianity   is   not    a   mere   collection   of 

moral  teachings  like  the  works  of  Confucius 

and  Mencius.    It  is  not  a  mere  code  of  ethics. 

It  is  the  way  of  salvation.    And  that  way  doe§ 

107 


108    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

not  merely  lie  in  following  the  Christ  as  many 
people  think,  but  it  lies  in  his  blood  shed  upon 
the  cross.  This  is  the  very  point  in  the  Chris- 
tian religion  where  people  are  apt  to  make  a 
mistake.  They  think  men  are  to  be  saved  by 
becoming  good  through  the  teachings  of 
Christ  They  think  that  if  they  read  the  Bible, 
study  its  teachings  and  keep  its  commandments 
they  will  reform  their  character  and  become 
good  and  righteous  men  and  will  then  be  saved. 
In  fact  they  think  that  they  can  be  saved  by 
their  own  good  works  through  the  teacliings  of 
the  Bible. 

But  this  is  a  great  mistake.  We  are  not  to 
be  saved  by  becoming  good  men.  We  must 
be  saved  in  order  to  become  good  men.  Good 
men  are  not  going  to  be  saved  but  saved  men 
are  going  to  become  good. 

We  must  first  of  all  be  saved  by  believing 
in  the  saving  power  of  the  cross  of  Christ, 
then  we  will  be  made  good  men  by  following 
the  teachings  of  Christ.  Salvation  must  come 
first  and  then  it  will  be  easy  to  become  good. 
The  cross  first  and  after  that  the  teaching. 

Teachings  are  like  nourishing  food.  They 
are  very  good  and  necessary  to  keep  up  the 
health  of  the  body.  But  nourishing  food  can 
not  take  the  place  of  medicine.  Do  not  de^ 
pend  on  nourishing  food  alone  for  the  cure 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION      109 

of  the  sick.  When  people  get  sick  they  call, 
first  of  all,  a  physician,  and  take  medicine. 
And  then  they  take  nourishing  food  to  keep 
them  in  health. 

Just  so,  sinners  are  spiritually  sick  men.  To 
be  saved  from  this  spiritual  sickness  they  must 
send  for  the  spiritual  physician  and  take  his 
saving  medicine,  which  is  belief  in  the  cross  of 
Christ.  Then  after  that  they  will  take  and 
greatly  relish  his  nourishing  food  which  is  the 
teachings  and  commandments  of  Christ. 

That  no  one  can  be  saved  from  the  conse- 
quences of  sin  by  the  mere  following  of  moral 
and  religious  teachings  is  very  clear.  In  moral 
and  religious  teachings  themselves  there  is  no 
power  to  save  a  man  from  the  consequences  of 
sin.  He  may  repent  of  his  sin  and  correct  his 
conduct  as  best  he  can,  yet  he  can  by  no  means 
undo  the  wrong  committed  against  another. 

MIGAWARI— SUBSTITUTE 

Take  a  case  in  the  criminal  court.     For 

example,  if  I  kill  a  man  tonight  I  shall  be  at 
once  arrested  and  sent  to  a  court  to  be  tried 
by  judges.  And  if  I  am  found  guilty  I  shall 
be  sentenced  to  death.  I  must  die  for  taking 
another  man's  life.  That  is  the  penalty  of  my 
offence.     I  must  pay  it  myself.     And  now 


110    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

when  I  am  put  into  prison  to  await  execution 
I  find  a  Bible  in  the  prison  and  reading  it  I 
find  the  teachings  of  Christ  about  murder.  I 
repent  of  my  conduct  and  determine  to  correct 
it.  "  Oh,"  I  say,  "  I  have  done  wrong,  I  will 
never  do  it  again.  I  will  correct  my  conduct 
and  will  surely  become  a  good  man  hereafter.'* 

Now  I  appeal  to  the  judge  to  pardon  my  of- 
fence because  I  have  truly  repented  and  really 
intend  to  reform  my  life  hereafter. 

Do  you  think  the  judge  will  pardon  me  be- 
cause of  my  true  repentance.  Will  he  say, 
"  All  right,  if  you  really  repent  of  your  sin 
and  truly  intend  to  reform  your  character,  I 
will  pardon  your  offence.  Now  go  in  peace  to 
your  home." 

No,  my  friends,  after  the  judge  has  once 
pronounced  sentence  of  death  he  can  by  no 
means  revoke  it  on  such  a  ground  as  that. 
No  matter  how  truly  you  repent  of  your  past 
conduct  and  how  sincerely  you  intend  to  re- 
form your  character  hereafter,  if  you  have 
already  killed  a  man  you  can  never  undo  that 
act  of  murder.  You  will  be  a  murderer  for- 
ever. You  can  never  change  it — you  can 
never  get  rid  of  the  stain.  This  evil  deed  can 
never  be  undone.  So  you  see,  crime  must 
receive  its  deserved  punishment. 

However,  if  you  ask  me,  is  there  absolutely 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       111 

no  way  of  saving  a  murderer's  life,  I  say  yes, 
there  was  in  the  olden  time  one  way  of  saving 
such  a  murderer's  life.  That  was  by  Migch 
wari — a  substitute.  An  innocent  person  tak- 
ing on  himself  the  offence  of  the  criminal  and 
dying  in  his  stead.  For  instance,  in  case  I 
murdered  a  man  and  am  sentenced  to  death, 
my  friend  offers  to  take  my  punishment  and 
die  in  my  place — this  is  Migawari.  Of  course 
in  the  present  time  we  have  no  such  provision 
in  our  criminal  law.  No  Migawari  is  allowed. 
But  in  the  old  days  we  had  frequent  cases  of 
this  substitution. 

For  example,  the  son  died  in  his  father's 
place,  the  servant  died  for  his  master,  the 
friend  for  his  friend,  and  so  on.  When  a 
father  was  sentenced  to  death  for  a  crime  his 
son  stepped  in  and  said  to  the  judge,  "  It  was 
not  my  father  who  committed  this  offence,  it 
was  I,  so  please  sentence  me  to  death  in  his 
stead."  Thus  the  son  died  in  the  father's  stead 
and  the  father  was  saved.  The  son  redeemed 
the  father's  life. 

Is  not  that  the  strongest  proof  of  a  son's  af- 
fection for  his  father?  Can  any  one  have 
greater  love  than  this — to  lay  down  his  life  for 
another? 

In  the  old  days  of  feudalism  we  had  fre- 
quent cases  of  faithful  retainers  dying  in  the 


112    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

lord's  stead,  thus  redeeming  their  master's  life 
with  their  own.  This  is  regarded  as  the  high- 
est expression  of  loyalty  to  a  master.  These 
are  the  best  examples  of  the  two  fundamental 
virtues  of  our  national  morality,  namely,  loy- 
alty and  filial  piety. 

Christ  also  said,  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man 
than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his 
friend." 

Yes,  Migawari  is  the  noblest  virtue  of  man- 
kind.   No  man  can  go  farther  than  that. 

JESUS  IS  OUR   MIGAWARI 

Now  if  you  look  at  the  cross  of  Christ  from 
this  viewpoint  you  can  easily  understand  the 
meaning  of  salvation  of  men  through  the  cross 
of  Christ.  The  death  of  Christ  is  the  Mi^o 
wari  of  all  mankind.    He  died  in  our  stead. 

As  I  told  you  before,  we  have  all  sinned. 
Sinners  must  be  punished.  Sin  once  com- 
mitted can  not  be  wiped  out.  It  must  receive 
its  due  recompense.  Though  you  may  repent 
of  your  past  conduct  ever  so  deeply  and  try  to 
reform  your  character,  your  mere  repentance 
and  reformation  of  character  can  never  wipe 
out  your  sin.  That  sin  cleaves  to  you  forever 
and  claims  its  just  recompense.  Therefore,  the 
only  way  of  being  saved  from  the  consequences 
of  your  sin  is  by  Migawari  which  is  substi- 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION      113 

tution.  Some  one  must  die  in  your  stead. 
Some  one  must  atone  for  your  sin.  Otherwise 
you  can  never  be  saved. 

But  no  human  being  can  do  this  for  another. 
All  men  are  sinners.  Sinners  can  not  save  sin- 
ners. Sages  or  saints,  they  can  not  atone  for 
the  sins  of  another. 

Confucius  was  one  of  the  greatest  sages 
that  this  world  has  ever  produced,  and  he  has 
left  us  many  wise  sayings  and  useful  precepts. 
But  as  he  was  human  he  was  also  a  sinner  be- 
fore God  as  we  all  are.  So  even  Confucius 
could  not  atone  for  our  sins.  And  even  in  his 
teachings  he  has  refrained  from  speaking  too 
freely  about  heaven  and  the  future  life.  Be- 
cause he  was  human  and  his  knowledge  was 
limited  to  this  world. 

I  think  Confucius  was  quite  right  and  quite 
honest  in  refraining  from  talking  about  things 
which  he  did  not  know  with  certainty. 

But  here  you  might  ask  again:  How  could 
one  man,  even  Christ,  perform  this  Migawari 
and  be  a  substitute  for  all  mankind  for  all  ages  ? 
Is  it  not  quite  unthinkable  that  one  man  could 
take  away  all  the  sins  of  all  mankind  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world  unto  its  very  end  ? 

But  listen !  Christ  is  not  a  mere  man.  He 
is  not  merely  the  greatest  of  all  sages.  He  is 
not  merely  the  greatest  of  all  saints.    He  is  not 


114    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

simply  the  greatest  and  best  man  that  this 
world  has  ever  seen.  Some  people  want  to 
consider  Christ  as  the  highest  type  of  human- 
ity. But  they  are  tremendously  mistaken. 
Christ  is  more  than  man,  more  even  than  the 
greatest  and  highest  man  in  the  world.  Christ 
is  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God.  In  fact 
Christ  is  God. 

"  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the 
Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God. 
— All  things  were  made  through  Him;  and 
without  Him  was  not  anything  made  that  was 
made." 

This  whole  universe  was  created  by  and 
through  Christ.  So  you  see  the  Bible  teaches 
that  Christ  is  very  God.  And  this  very  God 
of  heaven  and  earth  came  down  to  this  earth 
which  He  had  made  and  became  a  man  and 
dwelt  among  men,  in  order  to  save  men  from 
their  sins.  And  He  taught  us  the  truth  about 
God  and  about  heaven  and  the  future  life. 
Because  He  being  God  knows  all  about  these 
things. 

"  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time ;  the 
only  begotten  Son  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  He  hath  declared  Him." 

No  human  being  can  teach  the  whole  truth 
about  God ;  none  but  the  only  begotten  Son  of 
the  Father, 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       115 

You  see  now  there  is  an  infinite  distance 
between  this  Son  of  God  who  knows  every- 
thing in  heaven  and  earth,  and  these  great 
sages  of  the  ancient  world  who  refrained  from 
talking  about  the  unknown  things  of  heaven. 
Indeed,  such  a  difference  as  that  between 
heaven  and  earth. 

Christ  not  only  taught  us  the  truth  about 
God.  He  also  lived  the  very  life  of  God  upon 
the  earth  and  He  died  the  very  death  of  sinners 
upon  the  cross.  As  He  is  God,  of  course  there 
was  no  sin  found  in  him.  He  knew  no  sin 
himself.  Yet  He  took  upon  himself  all  our 
sins  and  was  made  a  substitute  for  us  and  died 
in  our  place  and  stead.  And  of  course  He  can 
be  made  the  substitute  for  all  mankind  because 
He  is  Almighty  God,  and  Almighty  God  must 
be  greater  than  this  little  insignificant  world 
of  human  beings.  Therefore  He  was  able  to 
make  full  restitution  for  the  sins  of  all  man- 
kind for  all  ages. 

And  now,  as  Christ  has  died  in  our  stead 
upon  the  cross,  we  are  made  free  from  sin,  just 
as  in  my  last  illustration  of  a  friend's  dying  in 
my  stead  I  was  made  free  from  the  guilt  of 
murder. 

So  now,  all  those  who  believe  in  Christ  and 
accept  His  vicarious  sacrifice  upon  the  cross, 
will  be  made  free  from  all  sins  and  conse- 


116    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

quently  from  all  penalties  of  sin.  Our  sins 
are  now  forgiven.  They  are  atoned  for  by  His 
death  upon  the  cross. 

So  now  by  trusting  in  the  efficiency  of 
Christ's  atoning  sacrifice,  we  are  saved  from 
going  to  hell  as  the  punishment  for  sin  com- 
mitted in  this  world,  and  instead  of  going  to 
hell  we  are  entitled  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  and  there  enjoy  eternal  bliss. 

BLOOD-SEALED   COVENANT 

Now,  this  is  what  is  meant  by  salvation 
through  Christ.  So  you  see  we  are  not  saved 
by  the  teachings  of  Christ  but  by  His  blood 
shed  upon  the  cross.  Of  course,  after  we  are 
saved  by  the  blood  of  Christ  we  need  the  teach- 
ings of  Christ  also.  Just  as  a  sick  man  needs 
nourishing  food  after  he  has  been  cured  by 
medicine. 

Now  as  this  is  the  most  important  of  all  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  I  hope  you  will  un- 
derstand it.  Christ  did  not  save  us  by  His 
mere  preaching  and  teaching.  He  was  not  a 
mere  preacher  of  righteousness.  He  did  not 
simply  say :  "  Do  good  and  abstain  from  evil 
and  you  shall  be  saved."  No,  He  saved  us  in 
spite  of  our  evil  doings  and  sinful  acts.  And 
He  did  it,  not.by  words  but  by  deeds,  even  by 
the  shedding  of  His  blood  upon  the  cross. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       117 

Indeed,  the  very  secret  of  the  power  of 
Christianity  lies  here.  It  does  not  lie  in  His 
>vise  sayings  but  in  His  shedding  of  blood. 

As  you  know,  blood  is'  the  symbol  in  some 
countries  of  the  power  to  make  a  man  sacrifice 
his  life.  It  is  the  drop  of  red  blood  which 
binds  a  man  to  keep  his  covenant,  even  at  the 
risk  of  his  own  Hfe. 

You  remember  when  the  forty-seven  re- 
tainers of  the  prince  of  Ako  took  that  solemn 
oath  to  revenge  their  master's  death  by  taking 
the  life  of  his  enemy,  after  they  had  signed 
their  names  to  this  covenant  they  sealed  it  with 
their  own  blood,  thus  making  the  covenant  a 
blood-covenant  (shi  wo  kisseru)  even  unto 
death.  Each  one  of  the  forty-seven  pledged 
himself  to  give  his  life  for  the  accomplishment 
of  this  great  purpose.  And  all  actually  did 
give  their  lives  in  remaining  true  to  their 
pledge. 

Now  Christ  made  a  covenant  with  us  for 
the  salvation  of  our  souls.  The  covenant  is 
this :  Whosoever  believes  on  Him  shall  be 
saved  from  sin  and  its  penalty,  no  matter  how 
great  a  sinner  he  may  be.  And  this  covenant 
He  sealed  with  His  blood. 

Now  you  see  that  the  religion  of  Christ  is 
a  blood-covenant  religion,  and  such  a  religion 
can  make  its  believers  willing  to  risk  life  itself. 


118  THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

Christians  do  not  simply  profess  their  belief 
with  their  mouths,  but  they  defend  their  faith 
with  their  lives. 

Every  one  who  becomes  a  Christian  pledges 
himself  to  sacrifice  his  life  if  necessary  for  the 
Christ  he  follows.  Christ  required  his  fol- 
lowers to  do  this.  He  said,  "  If  any  man 
would  come  after  me,  let  him  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  me."  That  is,  be  ready  to  die 
for  Him,  even  upon  the  cross. 

The  disciple  must  follow  the  example  of  his 
teacher.  If  the  teacher  has  laid  down  his  life 
for  others  the  disciple  must  be  ready  to  do  the 
same.  Christians  must  be  ready  to  lay  down 
their  lives,  not  for  the  Master's  sake  alone,  but 
for  the  sake  of  those  whom  their  master  loves, 
even  the  sinners  of  the  world.  In  a  word,  the 
true  Christian  is  a  man  of  sacrifice,  willing 
even  to  die  upon  the  cross  in  the  service  of  God 
and  man. 

SPIRIT  OF   SACRIFICE 

I  desire  that  our  nation,  as  a  nation,  should 
be  filled  with  this  spirit  of  sacrifice.  Our 
people  are  noted  for  their  spirit  of  sacrifice  in 
times  of  great  emergency.  When  our  country 
is  in  danger  every  man  is  ready  to  take  up 
arms  and  fight  till  death  if  need  be.  Such  a 
spirit  is  worthy  of  high  praise. 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       119 

But  nowadays  everybody  knows  the  import- 
ance of  such  public  spirit.  Everywhere  people 
are  showing  their  public  spirit  in  their  coun- 
try's emergency.  Such  a  spirit  of  patriotism  is 
not  peculiar  to  our  country.  The  last  great 
world  war  has  conclusively  proved  that  almost 
every  nation  of  the  civilized  world  has  this 
spirit  of  patriotism  when  any  great  emergency 
calls  for  it. 

But  what  I  am  saying  here  is  not  of  the 
spirit  of  patriotism,  however  great  it  may  be. 
The  true  spirit  of  sacrifice  makes  people  will- 
ing to  give  up  their  lives  for  a  righteous  cause 
at  any  time,  whether  in  time  of  war  or  in  time 
of  peace,  whether  in  high  public  positions  or  in 
ordinary  life. 

Every  statesman  should  be  ready  to  sacri- 
fice his  life  for  the  welfare  of  the  state  at  any 
time.  Every  educator  should  be  ready  to  stake 
his  life  for  the  sake  of  education.  Every  re- 
ligious teacher  should  be  ready  to  die  for  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  his  countrymen.  Parents 
should  be  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives  for  the 
children,  and  children  should  be  ready  to  sacri- 
fice their  lives  for  the  parents.  Husbands  for 
wives  and  wives  for  husbands.  What  would 
we  say  if  a  husband  should  save  his  own  life 
leaving  his  wife  at  the  mercy  of  a  murderer? 
And  we  all  expect  that  the  captain  of  a  ship 


120    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

shall  be  always  ready  to  sacrifice  his  life  for 
the  safety  of  his  passengers.  If  in  time  of 
shipwreck  the  captain  should  leave  the  boat 
before  the  passengers,  what  would  be  said  of 
such  a  man  ? 

I  believe  there  is  nothing  in  this  world  so 
noble  and  so  beautiful  as  this  spirit  of  sacrifice. 
I  wish  that  our  countrymen  could  be  filled  with 
this  spirit,  and  that  not  for  our  country  alone 
but  for  the  benefit  of  all  mankind.  Japan 
today  must  not  live  for  herself  alone,  nor  for 
the  Far  East  alone,  but  for  the  whole  world. 

But  to  make  a  people  capable  of  such  sacri- 
fice we  need  the  religion  of  sacrifice.  We  need 
a  religion  sealed  with  the  blood  of  its  founder. 
Formal  religions  are  of  no  avail. 

You  know  that  for  many  years  I  have  been 
lecturing  on  various  subjects  throughout  the 
empire.  I  have  been  lecturing  on  politics,  on 
economy,  on  education,  on  social  reform,  and 
so  on.  But  now  I  have  laid  aside  all  other 
subjects  and  am  only  preaching  this  blood- 
sealed  religion  of  Christ  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  country.  I  have  deter- 
mined not  to  know  anything  among  my  coun- 
trymen but  this  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  cruci- 
fied. Because  I  believe  there  is  nothing  else  in 
heaven  or  on  earth  that  can  save  a  man  from 
sin  and  its  penalty.    And  there  is  nothing  on 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       121 

earth  that  can  change  a  man  from  a  creature 
of  selfishness  into  an  angel  of  sacrifice.  The 
only  way  of  making  our  people  a  people  of 
sacrifice  for  the  benefit  of  all  mankind,  is  this 
blood-sealed  religion  of  Christianity. 

THE   PERSECUTED  RELIGION 

But  here  one  might  ask,  "  Does  Christianity 
really  produce  such  a  people?  Is  there  really 
such  power  in  the  rehgion  of  Christ?  Do 
Christians  show  this  spirit  of  sacrifice  any 
more  than  heathens  ?  " 

Yes,  Christianity  has  proved  its  power  by 
its  history  during  nineteen  hundred  years. 
Among  all  the  religions  of  the  world  none  has 
suffered  such  severe  persecution  at  the  hands 
of  its  enemies  as  Christianity.  No  other  re- 
ligion has  ever  produced  so  many  martyrs  as 
the  religion  of  Christ. 

When  Christianity  was  first  introduced  into 
the  Roman  Empire  how  cruelly  those  Roman 
people  treated  the  followers  of  that  religion! 
For  many  centuries  they  persecuted  all  Chris- 
tians in  the  most  cruel  manner.  They  were 
burned  alive,  thrown  into  dens  of  lions  and 
crucified.  The  Romans  tried  in  every  way  to 
extinguish  Christianity,  but  they  could  not  ac- 
complish their  purpose.  The  more  they  per- 
secuted the  more  it  spread  and  the  more  its 


122    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

followers  increased.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs 
became  the  seed  of  the  church  in  the  Roman 
Empire. 

We  have  the  story  of  cruel  persecution  of 
Christianity  by  the  Tokugawa  Shoguns  in  our 
own  country.  For  more  than  two  centuries 
the  Tokugawas  cruelly  persecuted  the  believers 
in  the  Christian  religion.  In  one  place  we  are 
told  that  many  holes  were  dug  in  the  ground 
for  the  purpose  of  burying  the  Christians  alive. 
In  these  holes  they  were  buried  up  to  their 
necks.  Then  the  executioners  came  with  their 
saws  in  their  hands  saying,  "  Now,  Christians, 
will  you  renounce  your  faith  in  this  evil  re- 
ligion of  Christ  and  be  dug  out  of  this  hole  and 
be  saved?  Or,  will  you  still  hold  to  your 
faith  and  have  your  heads  sawed  off?  Which 
will  you  do  ?  " 

Thus  each  one  was  threatened  in  turn.  To 
the  surprise  of  the  executioners  no  one  was 
frightened  by  their  threats.  They  all  said  they 
would  lose  their  heads  rather  than  renounce 
their  faith  in  Christ,  because  He  had  died  upon 
the  cross  for  them.  So  then  the  Christians 
lost  their  lives  in  this  terrible  manner.  It  is 
said  there  were  many  women  among  these 
poor  Christians  who  were  persecuted  in  this 
way.  Women  are  weak  by  nature,  they  dread 
physical  pain  more  than  men;  but  even  these 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       123 

timid  women  faced  this  terrible  death  with 
calmness  and  faith. 

POWER  OF  THE   CROSS 

My  friends,  how  do  you  account  for  this? 
Whence  came  this  courage  and  firmness  of 
these  early  Christians?  I  tell  you  the  only 
source  of  such  courage  and  firmness  is  in  the 
cross  of  Christ.  By  the  cross  of  Christ  the 
weak  become  strong,  cowards  turn  into  brave 
men  and  timid  women  become  fearless. 

If  you  truly  understand  the  real  meaning  of 
the  cross  of  Christ  you  can  conquer  all  things 
by  the  power  of  that  cross. 

The  cross  of  Christ  is  really  power  unto 
salvation.  No  matter  how  wicked  a  man  has 
been  if  he  really  understands  the  dying  love  of 
Jesus  upon  the  cross,  his  heart  will  be  melted 
and  he  will  become  a  new  man  in  Christ. 

I  know  many  such  cases  of  reformation  in 
wicked  men.  In  one  place  there  was  a  man 
who  had  determined  to  kill  another  man  and 
as  he  was  on  his  way  to  do  it,  he  passed  by 
a  Christian  meeting  place.  Stepping  in  for  a 
few  minutes  he  heard  the  preacher  tell  of  the 
dying  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  This  touched  the 
man's  heart  and  melted  it  with  the  fire  of 
love.  He  flung  away  his  revolver  that  he  had 
concealed  in  his  pocket,  and  confessed  hi§  3m 


124    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

and  became  a  follower  of  Christ  that  night. 
From  that  time  on  instead  of  killing  men  he 
sought  to  save  them,  and  died,  as  I  was  told, 
in  actual  service  for  others. 

"  For  the  preaching  of  the  cross  of  Christ 
is  to  them  that  perish  foolishness,  but  to  us 
which  are  saved,  it  is  the  power  of  God." 

Yes,  there  is  power  in  the  cross  of  Christ. 
The  power  not  only  to  save  sinners  from  the 
penalty  of  sin,  but  also  to  save  them  from  the 
power  of  sin  and  make  them  new  men  in 
Christ.  And  why  is  it  so?  Because  as  you 
know,  the  cross  of  Christ  is  the  perfect  revela- 
tion of  the  infinite  love  of  God. 

"  For  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave 
his  only  begotten  son  that  whosoever  believeth 
on  him  should  not  perish  but  have  eternal  life." 

Love,  you  know,  is  power.  Love  can  con- 
quer all  things.  No  power  on  earth  can  over- 
come it.  It  can  overcome  everything.  It  can 
melt  the  hard  hearts  of  wicked  men. 

DR.   JOSEPH   NEESHIMA 

Let  me  illustrate  the  power  of  love  to  melt 
the  heart  of  man  by  an  example  which  I  am 
glad  to  speak  of  here  tonight.  You  all  know, 
I  suppose,  the  first  president  of  the  Doshisha 
University  in  Kyoto  was  Dr.  Joseph  Neeshima. 
He  is  counted  among  the  three  great  edu- 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       125 

cators  of  the  era  of  Meiji  (the  reign  of  the 
late  emperor). 

Fukuzawa  Ukichi,  Nakamura  Keinu  and 
Joseph  Neeshima,  were  the  three :  I  am  glad  to 
say  that  I  personally  knew  all  these  great 
teachers.  But  of  these  three  I  was  most  inti- 
mately connected  with  Dr.  Neeshima.  I  was 
a  student  in  his  school  in  those  early  days  of 
Doshisha.  But  afterward  I  was  called  back  by 
him  to  teach  in  the  school  and  to  be  his  assist- 
ant. I  worked  with  him  many  years  until  the 
very  day  he  left  us  for  the  better  land.  So  you 
see  I  ought  to  know  him  pretty  well.  Yes,  I 
can  say  I  knew  him  best  of  all. 

Dr.  Neeshima  was  a  great  man,  but  his 
greatness  did  not  lie  in  his  knowledge  nor  in 
his  intellectual  power.  He  was  not  an  espe- 
cially eloquent  man.  He  was  not  a  fine  writer. 
He  left  no  book  behind  him.  His  greatness  lay 
in  his  lofty  character.  His  was  a  great  person- 
ality. Indeed,  he  had  a  big  heart,  full  of  love. 
He  loved  his  students  as  his  own  children.  He 
was  in  truth  a  loving  teacher.  And  his  great- 
ness lay  indeed  in  his  great  love  for  his 
students. 

TRUE  EDUCATOR 

I  think  every  educator  ought  to  have  this 
qualification.     Without  this  kind  of  love  he 


126    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

can  not  become  a  successful  teacher  of  young 
people.  Of  course,  to  become  a  teacher  one 
must  have  knowledge  to  impart,  and  mental 
power  to  lead  and  guide  his  pupils.  In  a 
word,  he  must  be  a  man  of  learning  and  of 
mental  ability.  Without  these  qualifications 
he  can  not  become  a  real  teacher.  But  even 
with  these  essential  qualifications  if  he  has  not 
real  love  for  his  pupils  he  can  not  become  an 
efficient  teacher.  If  a  teacher  shows  that  he 
has  no  such  true  love  for  his  students  I  think 
he  had  better  give  up  the  profession  of  teach- 
ing and  engage  in  some  other  work. 

You  know  when  we  send  our  children  to 
school  to  get  an  education,  we  commit  them 
entirely  into  the  hands  of  their  teachers.  We 
ask  these  teachers  to  make  useful  men  and 
women  out  of  these  crude  untaught  children 
for  the  country's  sake.  Perhaps  it  might  be 
better  if  we  could  keep  our  children  in  our  own 
homes  and  teach  them  ourselves,  thus  training 
them  according  to  our  own  wishes  and  desires. 
But  that  is  impossible.  We  parents  can  not 
undertake  such  a  task  ourselves.  So  we  ask 
the  teachers  to  do  it  for  us.  And  they  are 
undertaking  this  difficult  task  of  making  men 
and  women  and  good  citizens  of  our  children. 

If  therefore  teachers  are  really  doing  the 
work  of  the  parents  they  should  have  the  same 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION      127 

parental  affection  for  the  children.  Without 
this  affection  how  can  they  take  such  a  difficult 
task  upon  themselves  and  accomplish  it  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  state? 

But,  if  you  say,  "  Oh,  no,  no,  the  work  of  a 
teacher  is  not  such  a  great  task  as  you  think. 
The  work  of  a  teacher  is  to  impart  some  of  the 
special  knowledge  which  he  himself  has  ac- 
quired to  the  young  people  who  come  under  his 
care.  It  is  nothing  more.  Man-making  and 
character  building  are  not  the  essential  work 
of  a  teacher.  To  expect  anything  beyond  this 
passing  on  of  knowledge  is  to  expect  too  much 
from  the  teacher  of  the  present  day." 

Well,  if  educators  simply  content  themselves 
with  selling  their  knowledge  for  wages  of 
course  I  have  nothing  more  to  say.  I  am  sorry 
to  see  that  some  of  them  do,  though  they  do 
not  openly  confess  such  thoughts.  There  are 
at  the  present  day  many  teachers  among  us 
who  are  simply  selling  their  knowledge  for 
their  own  profit,  and  for  the  sake  of  our  coun- 
try I  am  sorry  to  see  this. 

But  if  on  the  contrary  our  educators  under- 
take, for  the  parents,  the  difficult  task  of  mak- 
ing good  men  and  women  and  good  citizens 
out  of  their  children,  they  must  first  of  all  pre- 
pare themselves  for  their  work  with  true 
parental  affection. 


128    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

I  know  that  President  Neeshima  was  truly 
such  a  loving  teacher.  I  know  several  in- 
stances in  his  life  which  revealed  this  love. 
When  we  were  dissatisfied  or  discouraged  with 
anything  in  the  school,  we  used  to  go  to  our 
president  to  complain  of  such  troubles.  He 
was  always  glad  to  receive  us.  And  while  we 
were  talking  with  him  all  our  dissatisfaction 
and  discontent  seemed  to  melt  away  in  his 
sunny  kindly  presence,  just  as  ice  melts  under 
the  warmth  of  the  sun's  rays.  There  was  some 
mysterious  power  in  our  president  which  no 
man  could  resist. 

STUDENT   STRIKE 

Once  during  the  presidency  of  Dr.  Nee- 
shima there  was  a  great  disturbance  in  the 
Doshisha,  caused  by  friction  between  teachers 
and  students.  The  whole  school  was  thrown 
into  disorder.  There  was  a  great  strike  among 
the  students.  The  president  tried  in  every  way 
to  conciliate  both  parties.  But  even  he  could 
not  succeed  in  his  task  of  reconciliation.  When 
every  hope  of  bringing  the  school  to  order  was 
gone,  it  was  decided  as  a  last  resort  to  expell 
the  disturbing  elements  from  the  school. 
There  was  no  other  way  but  to  apply  this 
extreme  form  of  discipline. 

One  morning  when  all  the  teachers  and  stu- 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       129 

dents  were  assembled  in  the  chapel  the  presi- 
dent came  in  with  a  cane  in  his  hand.  Whis- 
perings were  heard — "  Why,  the  president  has 
a  cane,  he  has  come  into  chapel  with  a  cane  in 
his  hand/'  As  soon  as  he  came  in  he  stood 
before  the  school  and  said — "  Gentlemen,  I 
am  sorry  to  see  such  a  disturbance  in  the 
school.  It  is  a  disgrace  to  Doshisha.  But,  as 
such  a  disturbance  has  arisen  we  must  punish 
the  person  or  persons  who  are  responsible  for 
it,  so  this  morning  I  will  punish  the  offender." 
Of  course  everybody  expected  the  president 
was  going  to  punish  the  ringleaders  of  the  riot- 
ing. But,  the  president  continued  to  speak. 
"  But,"  he  said,  "  gentlemen,  I  can  not  lay  this 
responsibility  upon  any  of  the  students,  neither 
upon  any  of  the  teacher3.  Then  who  is  re- 
sponsible? If  neither  students  nor  teachers 
are  responsible  for  this  disturbance,  upon 
whom  shall  this  responsibility  fall  ?  I  will  tell 
you.  The  person  who  is  wholly  responsible 
for  this  great  disturbance  in  Doshisha  is  this 
Joseph  Neeshima,  its  president.  It  is  the  duty 
of  a  president  to  govern  his  school  and  keep  it 
in  good  order.  Now  this  president  Neeshima 
has  failed  to  preserve  order  in  his  school;  he 
has  failed  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty  and  thus 
caused  this  great  disturbance  in  Doshisha. 
This  disturbance  has  not  only  brought  great 


130    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

misfortune  upon  the  students  and  has  given 
great  trouble  to  the  teachers,  but  it  has  brought 
disgrace  upon  this  institution.  All  this  has 
come  as  the  consequence  of  the  president's  in- 
ability to  govern  the  school  as  he  ought.  So 
now  the  whole  responsibility  must  be  laid  upon 
him,  he  must  bear  it  and  he  must  be  pun- 
ished." 

As  he  finished  speaking  he  lifted  his  cane  in 
his  right  hand  and  holding  out  his  left  hand  he 
began  to  strike  it  with  all  his  might,  again  and 
again.  He  struck  his  hand  so  hard  that  finally 
the  cane  broke  into  three  pieces,  and  you  can 
easily  imagine  its  effect  upon  his  hand.  It 
began  to  bleed  and  the  whole  school  was  taken 
aback.  How  could  they  any  longer  endure 
such  a  sight. 

One  of  the  students  rushed  up  to  the  presi- 
dent's side  and  seizing  his  arm  began  to  cry, 
"  Oh,  my  teacher !  my  teacher !  "  This  cry 
broke  up  the  whole  school.  Teachers  and  stu- 
dents all  burst  into  tears  and  wept  aloud.  It 
was  a  wonderful  sight  indeed.  The  president 
with  his  hand  bleeding  and  the  whole  school 
weeping! 

Why  did  he  punish  himself?  Was  there 
anything  in  his  conduct  which  deserved  such 
treatment  as  this?  A  man  of  love,  with  his 
heart  full  of  fatherly  affection  for  his  students, 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION      131 

most  faithfully  working  day  and  night  for  the 
welfare  of  the  school?  What  fault  could  you 
find  in  such  a  man  as  that? 

No,  no,  we  could  find  no  fault  in  him.  He 
was  indeed  respected  and  honoured  and  loved 
by  the  whole  school.  Though  the  students  rose 
in  rebellion  it  was  not  against  the  president  but 
against  the  teachers  of  the  school.  In  fact,  the 
president  had  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  uprising,  and  the  whole  school  knew  that. 
Why  then  being  a  faultless  man  should  he 
punish  himself  before  the  whole  school? 

There  was  no  need  of  explanation.  Every- 
body understood  that  the  president  was  per- 
forming Migawari — substituting  for  his  stu- 
dents. Those  students  had  transgressed  the 
laws  of  the  school,  they  knew  that.  And 
transgressors  must  be  punished.  The  inflict- 
ing of  severe  punishment  upon  the  rebellious 
students  was  the  only  way  by  which  the  school 
could  be  kept  in  order.  Therefore  as  the  presi- 
dent of  the  school  he  must  punish  them  and 
expell  them.  There  was  no  other  way  to  take. 
But  Dr.  Neeshima  was  not  simply  a  president, 
an  administrator  of  the  school.  He  was  the 
real  father  of  his  students  in  interest  and  af- 
fection, loving  them  as  his  own  children.  How 
could  he  strike  his  beloved  children  even  in 
punishment?     So  you  see  he  was  placed  be- 


132    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

tween  two  fires — ^justice  and  love.  But  love 
gained  the  day.  He  decided  to  be  wounded 
for  their  transgressions ;  to  be  bruised  for  their 
iniquities;  to  take  upon  himself  the  chastise- 
ment of  their  sins.  And  thus  with  his  stripes 
their  wounds  were  healed. 

THE   POWER  OF   LOVE 

By  this  act  of  love  the  hearts  of  the  erring 
students  were  entirely  changed.  No  longer  the 
rebels  of  yesterday,  they  were  the  most  faith- 
ful and  devoted  students  of  the  whole  school. 
They  began  to  say,  *'  If  our  president  loves  us 
so  much  as  not  to  spare  himself  even  such  suf- 
fering as  this,  should  we  not  love  him  more  ?  " 
"  We  are  ready  to  give  our  lives,  if  need  be, 
for  such  a  president,"  they  said. 

Yes,  for  a  good  man,  a  man  with  true  love, 
men  sometimes  venture  to  die. 

Afterwards  those  rebellious  students  had 
their  picture  taken  in  commemoration  of  this 
memorable  event.  They  grouped  themselves 
around  a  table  upon  which  were  the  three 
pieces  of  the  broken  cane.  The  spirit  of  the 
school  was  changed.  All  friction  between 
teachers  and  students  vanished  entirely.  Ill 
feelings  among  the  students  were  all  gone. 
The  school  was  melted  into  one  harmonious 
whole  by  this  love  of  the  president.     Yes,  it 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       133 

was  born  again,  and  became  an  entirely  new 
school.  Discipline  was  restored,  order  was 
kept  and  the  dignity  of  the  school  was  greater 
than  ever.  We  all  had  witnessed  the  power 
of  love. 

Dr.  Neeshima  was  not  naturally  a  very  elo- 
quent man.  But  when  he  preached  he  was 
quite  often  in  tears.  These  tears  were  power- 
ful sermons  and  we  were  all  moved  by  them. 
But  this  silent  sermon  of  the  bleeding  hand 
was  the  most  powerful  sermon  that  revered 
teacher  ever  preached. 

And  now,  my  friends,  whence  do  you  think 
Dr.  Neeshima  obtained  such  a  loving  heart? 
Whence  did  he  get  this  idea  of  substitution? 
Of  course  he  got  it  from  the  cross  of  Christ.  I 
knew  him  very  well.  He  believed  in  the  cross 
of  Christ.  He  not  only  believed  in  the  cross 
of  Christ  but  he  also  tried  to  bear  the 
cross  of  Christ  in  himself.  Yes,  he  did  show 
the  cross  in  this  case.  I  think  the  true  Chris- 
tian must  not  only  believe  in  the  cross  but  must 
bear  the  same  cross  in  himself.  We  must  all 
be  followers  of  the  crucified  Jesus.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  do  what  Dr.  Neeshima  did,  but 
we  m.ust  be  ready  to  bear  the  cross  in  our  own 
way  and  in  our  own  circumstances. 

Christianity  is  the  religion  of  love.  And  its 
perfect  example  was  given  upon  the  cross  of 


134.    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

Christ.  He  taking  upon  Himself  all  the  sin  of 
the  world  and  dying  in  our  stead  upon  the 
cross  is  the  greatest  personification  of  the  love 
of  God.  And  His  love  is  now  melting  the 
hearts  of  the  whole  world. 

CRUCIFIXION    AND   HARITSUKE 

You  all  know,  I  suppose,  what  crucifixion 
is?  In  our  country  we  used  to  call  it  Hari- 
tsuke.  But  what  we  know  in  this  country  as 
Haritsuke,  crucifixion,  is  different  from  cruci- 
fixion in  the  time  of  Christ. 

In  our  country  crucifixion  was  in  this  man- 
ner. The  criminal  was  tied  with  cords  to  the 
crossed  pieces  of  wood  and  then  he  was  pierced 
on  each  side  with  a  spear.  It  must  be  a  terrible 
thing  to  be  tied  to  a  cross  and  pierced  with  a 
spear.  But  a  man  pierced  in  the  side  with  a 
spear  dies  instantly.  The  pain  and  suffering 
though  intense  are  but  for  a  moment,  and  then 
all  is  finished. 

But  crucifixion  in  the  time  of  Christ  was  not 
of  this  kind.  In  those  days  before  a  criminal 
was  crucified  he  was  stripped  and  scourged 
with  rods.  This  Roman  rod  was  made  of  sev- 
eral strips  of  leather  on  the  ends  of  which 
were  pieces  of  ivory  to  make  the  scourging 
more  severe  and  painful.  After  this  cruel 
scourging  the  cross  on  which  the  man  was  to 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       135 

be  crucified  was  bound  on  his  back  and  he 
was  dragged  along  to  the  place  of  execution. 
There  he  was  stripped  of  all  his  clothing  and 
laid  upon  the  cross,  his  hands  outstretched,  and 
the  naihng  began.  For  he  was  not  merely  tied 
with  cords  to  the  cross,  he  was  actually  nailed 
to  the  cross.  Large  iron  nails,  especially  made 
for  that  purpose,  were  driven  with  a  hammer 
right  through  the  palms  of  both  hands.  That 
finished,  the  feet  were  nailed  in  the  same  man- 
ner. Sometimes  the  nails  were  driven  through 
both  feet  together,  but  quite  often  each  foot 
was  nailed  separately.  And  now  after  the  vic- 
tim was  nailed  securely  to  the  cross,  it  was 
raised  so  that  the  weight  of  the  body  hung 
from  these  cruel  nails. 

Here  is  another  difference  between  our 
Haritsuke  and  crucifixion  in  the  time  of  Christ. 
In  Haritsuke  the  man  is  killed  instantly  with  a 
spear.  But  in  the  time  of  Christ  the  man  was 
not  killed  instantly  by  either  spear  or  sword. 
He  was  kept  hanging  on  the  cross  to  die  of 
the  most  excruciating  pain.  Have  you  ever 
stuck  a  needle  into  your  hand?  Did  it  not 
cause  intense  pain  ?  Think  then  what  it  would 
mean  to  have  a  spike  driven  through  both 
hands  and  feet.  Can  you  imagine  the  pain 
caused  by  such  cruel  treatment?  And  to  have 
this  suffering  prolonged  until  at  last  when  it 


136    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

became  unendurable  the  victim  would  cry  out, 
"  Kill  me,  kill  me  and  end  my  pain/'  If  by  a 
spear  thrust  or  a  sword  cut  you  should  put  an 
end  to  his  suffering  at  once  you  would  be  show- 
ing him  great  mercy. 

But  in  those  times  no  one  would  do  that. 
The  object  of  crucifixion  was  not  to  take  life 
but  to  inflict  pain  and  suffering;  so  they  left 
the  victim  hanging  on  the  cross  until  he  died  a 
slow  death  of  agony.  Sometimes  the  victim 
lingered  several  days  in  an  agony  of  pain. 
There  is  no  death  more  painful  than  this  death 
on  the  cross.  Death  by  a  spear  thrust  or  by 
fire  comes  quickly,  and  death  by  hanging  is 
instantaneous;  but  death  on  the  cross  as 
in  the  old  time  method  is  a  lingering 
agony. 

Now,  my  friends,  when  we  say  that  Jesus 
Christ  died  upon  the  cross  it  ijieans  that  He 
died  this  lingering,  this  most  agonizing  death. 
We  do  not  know  what  spiritual  suffering  He 
endured  upon  the  cross.  Of  course  His  spir- 
itual suffering  must  have  been  the  greatest  of 
all  His  suffering.  But  that  is  beyond  our  com- 
prehension. We  can  never  know  the  real 
nature  of  that  spiritual  agony.  But  we  can 
understand  His  bodily  suffering.  We  can 
even  feel  it  if  we  will.  It  is  enough  for  us 
to  know  that  He  endured  this  agonizing  death 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION      137 

upon  the  cross  for  us,  even  to  save  us  from 
sin  and  eternal  suffering. 

Jesus  was  not  a  sinner.  They  found  no 
fault  in  Him.  But  He  took  upon  Himself  our 
sins.  God  laid  all  our  sins  upon  His  dear  Son 
and  redeemed  us  from  death  by  this  sacrifice. 

Now,  this  is  salvation.  I  hope  you  have 
understood  it  fully. 

REPENTANCE 

I  told  you  a  few  minutes  ago  about  Dr.  Nee- 
shima's  striking  his  own  hand  with  his  cane 
and  thus  saving  his  students  from  receiving 
their  just  punishment.  As  you  heard  that 
story  you  all  seemed  to  be  very  much  im- 
pressed. I  noticed  some  of  you  were  in  tears. 
And  I  thank  you  for  your  sympathy  with  my 
dear  teacher. 

But  I  think  no  one  of  you  here  tonight  was 
personally  acquainted  with  Dr.  Neeshima. 
This  incident  took  place  more  than  thirty-five 
years  ago.  Moreover,  perhaps  you  have  no 
connection  with  the  University  of  Doshisha. 
The  true  love  which  my  beloved  teacher 
showed  upon  that  occasion  has  even  now  the 
power  of  melting  people's  hearts,  people  who 
never  knew  him  and  whom  he  did  not  know. 
This  is  indeed  a  wonderful  quality  of  love. 

But,  my  friends,  Dr.  Neeshima  only  struck 


138    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

his  left  hand  until  it  bled  a  little.  His  was  not 
great  suffering  at  all.  Yet  everywhere  I  tell 
this  story  people  are  affected  by  it  and  shed 
tears. 

It  was  not  so  with  our  Lord.  It  was  not  a 
mere  striking  of  the  hand  until  it  bled.  Our 
Lord  was  crucified.  He  was  nailed  to  the  cross 
in  the  most  cruel  manner.  His  hands  and  His 
feet  were  pierced  with  iron  spikes.  He  was 
crowned  with  thorns.  His  whole  body  was 
mutilated  and  bleeding  from  that  scourging  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  the  merciless  Roman 
soldiers. 

Now,  my  dear  friends,  if  your  hearts  are 
touched  by  this  story  of  Dr.  Neeshima's  slight 
suffering  for  his  students,  and  if  you  could 
shed  tears  for  him  with  whom  you  have  no 
connection,  how  is  it  with  this  great  suffering 
of  your  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  who  died  not 
for  some  unknown  students,  but  for  you,  to 
save  you  from  eternal  suffering  ?  Can  you  shed 
tears  for  Him  and  His  suffering?  Of  course 
you  will  shed  tears  if  you  take  it  to  heart.  But 
the  shedding  of  tears  is  not  enough.  For 
Christ  died  to  save  you  from  sin.  Repent  of 
your  sin,  I  beg  of  you  my  friends,  and  accept 
His  offering  of  salvation  through  His  cross. 
Be  cleansed  and  purified  by  His  blood.  And 
come  back,  come  back  to  your  Heavenly  Father 


GOD,  SIN  AND  SALVATION       139 

once  more  as  His  dear  children.    This  is  salva- 
tion through  the  death  of  Christ  upon  the  cross. 

DECIDE  FOR   CHRIST 

'And  now,  my  friends,  I  hope  you  have  all 
understood  what  Christianity  is  and  what  you 
ought  to  do. 

First,  you  must  believe  in  the  one  true  living 
God. 

Secondly,  you  must  acknowledge  your  sin 
and  repent  of  it. 

Thirdly,  you  must  believe  in  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  upon  the  cross.  You  must  believe  in  the 
efficacy  of  His  atonement.  You  must  accept 
Hinj  as  your  Saviour  and  decide  to  follow  Him 
in  life  or  death. 

And  one  thing  more,  that  is  when  you  be- 
come a  follower  of  Christ  you  must  not  be- 
come so  only  in  name,  but  in  deed.  You  must 
in  your  daily  life  have  the  real  spirit  of  this 
sacrificial  death  of  Christ  upon  the  cross.  You 
must  also  carry  your  own  cross  in  your  daily 
life.  You  must  be  ready  to  sacrifice  your  own 
life  for  the  sake  of  your  fellowmen. 

And  now  if  you  have  fully  understood  all 
these  points  that  I  have  tried  to  make  clear 
to  you,  and  wish  to  become  followers  of 
Christ,  I  think  now  is  the  time  for  you  to  make 
your  decision  for  Christ.    I  will  now  give  each 


140    THE  THREE  HOUR  SERMON 

one  of  you  a  decision  card,  and  if  you  really 
decide  to  accept  Christianity  as  your  religion 
and  to  follow  Jesus  Christ  as  your  Lord  and 
Master  in  life  and  death,  will  you  please  sign 
your  name  on  that  card,  giving  also  your  full 
address  and  the  church  which  you  prefer  to 
attend? 

It  is  very  important  for  you  to  attend  some 
church  regularly  and  receive  still  further  in- 
struction in  the  Christian  religion. 

Tonight  I  have  given  you  only  the  elemen- 
tary knowledge  of  Christianity.  You  must  not 
stop  here,  but  inquire  further  into  the  deep 
things  of  the  Christian  religion.  For  that 
deeper  knowledge  of  God  you  must  go  to 
church  and  learn  of  Him. 

May  God  bless  your  decision  here  tonight. 


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